


Fails and Wins

by FancyLadySnackCakes



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Angst, Bigotry & Prejudice, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Ghoul Sex, Humor, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, RST, Radiation Sickness, Resolved Sexual Tension, UST, Unresolved Sexual Tension, sex as medicine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:54:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21693385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancyLadySnackCakes/pseuds/FancyLadySnackCakes
Summary: A collection of Charon/F!LW stories lifted from my old kink meme days. Please see warnings in the tags. <3
Relationships: Charon (Fallout)/Female Lone Wanderer
Comments: 34
Kudos: 190





	1. Fails

It was futile he knew, but that didn’t halt his efforts, though he could appreciate how stupid he was for trying. She didn’t notice and that almost made it more embarrassing than if she’d turned him down. 

The first time he’d thought to do something so blatantly obvious was when she was recovering in the Citadel. Far beyond worry, but still weak enough to be bedridden most of the time. She took to lounging on her side most days, scrolling through her Pipboy, mapping locations for them to visit when she was well enough, making it painfully obvious how eager she was to be back in harm’s way. Most of the time she’d repeat full sentences that made his eyes twitch. Other times she let them inject drugs through her IV, wasting away her time with him asleep or halfway there, hoping that time would pass more quickly.

During one of her drug-induced naps, he’d decided to prepare them for the inevitable journey outside. While upending a smaller sack of her things he’d stumbled upon a half molded book; it’s front cover completely torn off. His letters were enough to show him what sort of book it was, so he’d decided to slip out to raid the Scribes library at once. A new task to concentrate on.

The signs getting there were too easy to follow. It had been deserted as well - no locks - and so he didn’t give a shit when he started tossing unimportant books behind his shoulders. Most of what he’d found didn’t make sense to him but he stumbled across a few sappy titles, which he set aside only after checking behind him to assure himself there wasn’t anyone watching. It wouldn’t have been good for anyone to find him - a seven-foot ghoul with a perpetual scowl - digging around for romance novels. Even he knew how it looked...

When he had half a dozen books, he promptly tucked them under one arm, leaving behind half their collection on the floor. Uncaring.

She’d still been asleep when he came back, but it had given him time to arrange the books at the foot of her bed; two rows of three. Before she stirred into consciousness he had half a mind to lay down two clear wrapped cakes and one lukewarm cola.

The set was complete but she only looked at him with a weird expression when she’d seen it. She’d read them though, and every now and then he’d stare at her from across the room when she cleared her throat and blushed, hoping she’d understood the message and look his way. 

She never did.

That was the first time. After that, he decided he had to be a bit more...aggressive.

The second time they were in the tunnels, with nothing but a few river lights blinking up in the top corners. They’d come across a deep fissure, left behind when the earth had shaken from the bombs. It was filled with fetid water, a layer of congealing filth skimming the top, making it look matte even under the bouncing light.

She’d cursed, looking down at her boots as if saying goodbye to their dryness while he hastily unzipped his jacket behind her. He’d seen picture shows before the war. Men were always putting their jackets on ladies and carrying them over puddles if he remembered it right, so while she was distracted he threw his heavy, musky, large jacket on top of her. She gasped, but he took the opportunity to pluck her up bridal style, kicking and growling, while he stepped knee-deep into the water.

She settled down when he was halfway through the putrid water, but under the darkness of his jacket, he could hear her whispering threats. He smirked to himself, thinking maybe this would clear her misconceptions of him, but when he put her down she merely shook off his jacket and stuck a tongue out at him, leaving him smelling rotten and looking quite foolish.

A week later they were in the Little Lamplight Caverns. After her initial verbal war with the Mayor, she’d leaned in close to him, making him crane his neck to hear her as she whispered ‘You gotta give it to these kids, getting by without someone to protect them, play with them… or anything. It’s pretty amazing.’ 

Though her words had been admiring, she’d leaned away with a sympathetic frown, leaving him for a little girl that was waving her over. His mind ticked and immediately he scouted a young boy sticking muddy fingers into a girl’s face; no older than five she seemed. Tears were already welling in her eyes when he walked up behind the boy and lifted him in the air by his ratty collar. 

The boy kicked and screamed like he was being flayed, but all Charon did was put him down in a damp corner, explaining how he was to remain where he was for ten minutes, gesturing to the little girl with brown smudges on her face...and if he didn’t? Well, he hadn’t had to get that far, the boy just nodded with gaping eyes. It was easier than most things he’d done. Almost all things.

As the boy glared up at him sullenly, Charon started searching for his employer, finally catching her meandering down a tunnel with a polka dot dress girl on her arm. He snuck behind them, following just out of sight, waiting in the shadows. He scanned every child for an excuse to protect, play or ‘anything’ with them.

There was a girl ripping slimy moss off a cave wall - a fat roach appearing on her hand, making her screech. 

It was perfect. 

Quickly he advanced on the offending insect, stomping on it until nothing but a greasy paste was left in the fissures of the cave floor. Beside him the little girl cheered, clapping her hands above her head, but he was too busy trying to see if his heroism was noticed. 

It wasn’t. She wasn’t anywhere in sight. 

He deflated with a grumble, walking away from the girl chanting ‘boog killer’.

Despite how little interest he had in assisting the children when he wasn’t being admired for it, assist he did when they asked. And one favor only begot another until they were all asking him to board up ‘scary holes’, cutting off hunks of that green shit and becoming a ghoul jungle gym.

Seventy-six minutes later he had two kids on either shoulder, fighting with chair legs over his head, one swinging on his calf and another tiny little thing trying to climb him like a tree; a heel dangerously close to his balls. He didn’t dare move, only looked straight ahead, hoping death would finally come upon him before she saw him like this.

Fate was an asshole though because as soon as the prayer past in a hiss between his teeth she rounded a jagged wall. The look on her face made him look down at a gap-toothed, grinning, filthy-faced child as though it had physically harmed him.

Mortification came to mind, knowing he’d been reduced to a child’s play toy.

At the time his employer had laughed at him until tears and snot stained her face. She might have mumbled apologies through uproars of laughter, but he refused to accept any of them… that is until she rolled out a lumpy bedroll beside his corner that night.

He realized she hadn’t stopped smiling at him since then.

“I think you had fun today. No matter how much you’ll deny it.”

Then, a strange thing happened, he found her hand on his jawline, a thumb stroking his chin as she beamed, “You would have a made a great Dad.”

After that night it was easier to impress her and he went out of his way to do it too. Instead of finding a detour around a toppled lamp post he’d lift it out of the way. If there was a river they had to cross he’d lift her up on his shoulders and cross it himself. A can of tinned fruit on the top shelf of some run-down market? It was hers.

Eventually one morning he woke up to her arm and leg draped over him; her plump cheek nestled over his ribs. He hadn’t gone back to sleep then, just lied there with her weight atop him, brimming with this new emotion he was building quite an addiction to. He dared a heavy hand on the back of her head, just touching enough to stroke the soft hair that grew there. At that moment he felt like he’d won… if just until she woke up.

Later on, they found themselves in an irradiated box, her face pink and nose runny from the gamma that made her wrist click feverishly at her hip. She never had to ask him to get the Wazer Wifle she’d dropped down the railing. He got one look at her - face crestfallen and guilty to ask something of him. 

He left her with a trail of frag mines behind her. Just in case.

An uncomfortable pleasure accompanied him down the stairs. The lower he went, stepping over the rotten railing, the more he thought of her kissing him when he brought the gun back into her hands. Three hundred rads ago he would have sneered at himself for such a sappy idea, but the more his body thrummed with soft heat the faster he went; eager for that delicate kiss.

Rewards, he told himself. 

He did not get a kiss as his feverish mind wanted, almost demanded, but she beamed at him with a large smile and hugged him low around the waist when her gun was holstered back over her shoulder. 

It was… wonderful.

Months went by like this, then years, until one day he was doing nothing at all and she found him cleaning a wound in the bathroom, naked from the waist up with a cigarette in his mouth. For a second she shamed him, her eyes all over his tattered torso, before finally catching his uncomfortable stare.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It is my duty to protect-”

“No, not anymore.” There were tears in her eyes when she said it, “You’re not honor-bound to take bullets for me… and you said you weren’t hit. You lied to me.” He did, and she looked away when a little drop of moisture caught in her eyelashes.

A sniffle from the doorway made his heartache - the feeling was worse than the raw wound in his shoulder.

“So why didn’t you tell me, and don’t lie.”

“I did not want to seem weak,” he said flatly, hoping she would leave him be after the confession, afraid her image of him, that he’d carefully cultivated over the years, had not been shattered.

“Weak? You mean…” she started but then sighed, walking towards him. He jerked when her bare hand landed on his chest, warm and soft. He was too busy staring at her dumbly to feel her take the blood-soaked cloth from his hand. The cigarette in his mouth fell to the floor with a sizzle when she laid the cloth firmly to his bleeding wound.

“Did you get the bullet out already?” she asked softly and carefully like he were someone that needed the gentle tone. Instead of annoyance, it made him feel cared for - but she had always been good at making him feel that way.

“I did,” he finally said.

“If you hadn’t taken the shot for me this might have landed in my head… looks about the same place where my face is, always under your shoulders. I even asked you if you got hit. I remember this...” There was a little ring of amusement to her words and it made him smile, a smile that she noticed.

“Are you… smiling, Charon?”

It dropped immediately, but the damage was done and when he looked over she was grinning so wide he could see a little crack on her lower lip. His tongue moved behind his teeth and without thinking he cupped the back of her neck and brought her down. Soft flesh pressed against his raw lips - the tang of her blood on his tongue where he skimmed it over her bottom lip, groaning quietly. 

It felt like a pleasurable knife in his gut when she parted her lips, peeking her warm tongue out against his. A sigh of pleasure wrapped around a tiny moan leaked from her throat and he groaned, pulling her in between his knees with a hand on her back. Her lips slanted against his own, deepening it with a delicate sound. Each locking of their lips fueled a fire where the imaginary knife was planted until she shifted flat against his chest and her hands went to his shoulder and neck - pain blossoming around his bullet wound.

He hissed, jerked and she was once again too far away from him.

“Sorry,” she breathed, panting softly, “I… forgot about that for some reason.”

Somehow she wasn’t disgusted by what had just happened, “It’s alright”, and somehow he wasn’t leaning back in to drag her back in his embrace - back to his mouth that still tingled from the touch of her tongue. Eventually, he saw her smile, covering it with a hand on her cheek and he breathed in relief…

“I wonder how long you’ve been holding that one back.”

He smirked, “Awhile.”

“Well, maybe you can have another if you hold still for me a little while longer,” she was all smiles as her fingers slid against his skin - the pain nothing when he knew there’d be more kisses to come. The exhilaration of the kiss they’d just shared and the excitement of those to come made his left knee jerk as she sewed him up. It was all he thought about when she led him back to the couch - a fresh bandage around his chest. 

“Stay still, or I’ll stop.” 

His cock twitched when she said that, but he figured, this was the easiest thing he’d done in months in exchange for the kisses he’d wanted all along… there was no rush.


	2. Rain

His thighs were on fire, shoulders throbbed like knives were buried under the blades and in his arms where she lay, he could feel her heat burning the bare flesh of his arms. He pulled her tighter against him, feeling her shift and a gust of hot, moist breath press into his shirt. There was a muffled sound under the leather jacket - a little quiet sound made even less coherent by the pattering of the rain. Distant thunder resounded off the ruined, metal giants in the guts of DC. It was a phantom rain, the first he’d experienced in decades. The first she’d ever felt and hopefully the last.

Again he heard her voice, diluted, “Are we close?” The movement of her lips brushed against the soiled fabric of his shirt and he nearly tripped, his heart skipping.

Selfishly he hoped the journey to GNR would never end, but he could see the black sign already, made grey by the sideways rain. 

“Nearly there,” he spoke, grunted and hefted her up when she squirmed. Her bare, white ankles were wet, and he knew some of the irradiated rain was seeping past his jacket, curling under the creases and wetting her body. Not for the first time he swallowed thickly, shifting his thoughts away from her as best he could. The radiation was having the effect it always had on him, always had on most unlucky bastards like him - warm, soothing waves crashed along his body, making the pain in his back and legs less with every minute, but bringing to attention his most annoying appendage.

A gust of wind slapped against his side when he stepped into the GNR courtyard, and with it came a wall of heavy rain. Charon heard her yelp and stiffen, hands fisting into his jacket as the wind fanned her shield halfway off her body, covering her in hot rain. Quickly he fell to his knees, resting her on his thighs and wrapping her back up in the wet leather, tucking her legs in.

“Just get us inside,” she yelled past the jacket and the deafening rain. She shook, curling into a tight ball as he hefted her back up in his arms. Despite the weakness in his limbs, he jogged across the rubble, stepping over the black bone of a behemoth to find a sentry of Brotherhood soldiers hidden under the entrance.

“About time”, one of them complained, expression and tone hidden behind a scuffed power helmet.

His teeth set hard, like a dog, but it fell when longs legs unfolded and kicked free of his arms. Charon nearly bit into his own tongue when a tiny hand unknowingly shoved back against his groin plate.

“Put me down,” she commanded, and he - like a good employee - opened his arms as she found her feet, shaking off his jacket to land wetly on the concrete. His short, wet employer was flushed, embarrassed to have the soldiers see her in her skivvies. A force to be reckoned even dressed down as she was. Despite the heavy rain and the inadequate raincoat, her long braided hair was fairly dry and the smudges of dirt on her chin and neck were still present. He had done a decent job of keeping her safe. Not a perfect one though. Rarely perfect these days.

Before he could bend to pick up his jacket, she had plucked it up, shaking it out with her lower lip sucked in between her teeth. He was thankful for his groin plate when he caught sight of a stiff nipple, pressing through her damp undershirt. Charon ignored the memory of standing her under a thin, broken doorway so she could strip out of her sodden armor. They had left it there in a steaming pile...

“You will defeat the purpose of me keeping you dry if you continue, ma’am,” he said, taking the dripping jacket from her two hands with a straight expression.

“Fine,” was his only response. She looked weak and the red blotches on her cheeks were of more than just shame.

“Open the doors,” said a soldier, metal thumb on the intercom, “She’s finally here.”

A scratchy, robotic response, “Open.”

One of the soldiers kicked open the door. Cold, damp air greeted him as he followed behind her. He could see bumps on her skin forming like a rash as soon as the door banged shut behind them. The rain was, if not more deafening inside. A steady vibration of rain hitting the building and more short crackles of thunder in the distance. It would be a long storm, Charon knew. They were always long now, always long and violent, but never frequent.

“We made it, and I’m alive… you’re alive.” Her voice was shaken, which he had anticipated. 

She peered back at him, unsure and green eyes looking for something he was sure she wouldn’t find.

He tried to imagine what it must be like to see rain for the first time, twirl happily under it and then have someone as ugly as him rip her away, to then yell down at her. It would have been unpleasant in any circumstance, but he was self-aware enough to know it was worse coming from a man that looked like him. She had looked so amazed, spinning there, as the rain sprinkled down on her cheeks, and the look she had turned to him - before she’d seen him sprinting towards her - had been one of innocent pleasure.

Charon wanted that look back, but he would never let that be known.

He watched her place a hand to her red cheek and frown, turning past the soldiers, whose helmets turned to follow her. Charon glared as the occupied power armor shifted and watched with hollow eyes. His employer was underdressed and wet, and it was easy to imagine the looks being perverse and insulting.

“Come on Charon, if I fall I’d rather you catch me than the floor.” 

At her beck and call, he jogged up the stairs to follow at her back, close enough to feel her body heat, but never close enough. The nape of her neck was pebbled with small water droplets and he wished to wipe them away with his tongue, but he kept his teeth pressed tightly together as she led them up another set of stairs and through a wooden door. The tang of radiation was on the back of his tongue when he swallowed audibly again, ignoring her rear as she sped up ahead.

The disk jockey saw her and grinned, opened his mouth to greet her and -

“Save it,” Her hand went up in command for silence, “Where are your medical supplies. The rad-away to be more specific,” she said, her voice laced with suppressed anxiety.

“Damn, girl. Alright, alright. We’ll save the pleasantries for later. Follow ‘ol Three Dog this way and I’ll make you right as rain.”

Charon could feel her sneer even with his eyes on her back. When she moved he followed and minutes later he was knelt before her, threading a needle into her arm as a neon orange bag hung above her. He gripped her arm gently, ignoring the contrast of pale, smooth flesh and red ruin. It always surprised him when she never jerked away from his touch.

The needle slid into her delicate blue vein as she inhaled sharply - the endless thrumming of rain nearly drowning out the sweet sound. He remained knelt before her as the medicine flooded her system, a metal can in his lap in case she vomited. Of this, she did not ask him, but it was a good excuse to remain close.

“Are you ready to talk business now? Or do you need some hot chocolate too?” Three Dog was all white teeth and smiles, and to Charon’s annoyance, she gave him a weak smile back. 

“We could use some food, some rest too. I got here quickly, didn’t I? The least you can do is show us some hospitality at the very least,” she finished with no small amount of annoyance. The disk jockey only lifted his hand and muttered ‘fine, fine’ before leaving the both of them alone.

“I don’t trust him,” he said, watching the draining rad-away bag instead of her.

“Well that’s a shocker,” there was a smile in her voice and he snorted back, cursing under his breath when she gave a breathy chuckle. “He’s not so bad,” she continued, “He cares more about his radio station than any ‘good fight’ maybe, but he helped me when I was alone and scared. Gave me food and supplies when I had none.”

He watched her then, smiling fondly and he hated it before he could reign the feeling in.

“He’s not so bad…” she finished, closing her eyes and feigning sleep when Three Dog walked back in with a helmetless Brotherhood soldier behind him.

“That shit’ll make the dead sleep, huh,” the disk jockey laughed, laying down a veritable feast of pre-war packaged snacks and warm beers. 

“Still got her fort set up from the last time she was here,” and now the man was talking to Charon, as if he were any other man, “Not sure how much room she’ll spare for you, but there’s a mattress down where the Initiate's sleep. They ain’t as tolerant of a ghoul as decent folk, though. Might be better off dragging it back up here.”

Charon nodded, still disliking him, though not as much as before. When the orange bag was wrinkled and empty, he slid the needle from her arm as gently as he could, finding her eyes open when he looked back up, watching him silently.

“Can you walk?”

She did not answer him, but asked, “Do you mind carrying me?” It did not matter if he minded, he wanted to say, but she would lose her soft smile if he did so. She was dead-weight in his arms when he shifted her around, resting her against his chest before standing. 

“Through that hallway and to the right, I heard Three Dog…” she whispered. He saw the man at his station, cooing into the microphone across the room, not sparing them a single glance. He followed her directions, ignoring the way her fingers touched along his chest, nails catching in the old bullet holes and tears.

It was a bathroom. Of course, he cursed. Small enough for it, he reminded himself. She sighed against him as he eyed the tub, filled with half a mattress and old blankets, “Not enough room for you in here I guess.” There was even an old suitcase with clothes rumpled up under a beaten up laser pistol. 

Gently he sat her down on the lip of the tub, kneeling so as to take the stress off of his back. When he went to rise she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Something about her body language made him stiffen and when he managed to look at her, she was blushing. He searched her face but found her eyes bright and shiny, not sickly. No, she wasn’t still sick, she just…

“Would you want to-” she swallowed and shifted, taking her hand away, “Would you mind doing what you did before when we were at Dukov’s… if you don’t want to it’s fine, I just…”

He made no movement only watching her, shocked that she’d ask.

“I just liked it is all,” she finished, looking impossibly red and young despite her twenty-four years. It still made no sense. Perhaps, he wondered, the radiation had been too much for him and he was hearing things wrong. It would not have been the first time.

“Be more specific,” he said, unable to keep his hands off the edge of the tub, fencing her in unconsciously, hoping he’d heard right.

“Please, close the door,” her voice was breathy and scared, but lusty too. 

He turned around quickly and slammed the door, forcing the lock with a snap of his wrist - it was loud, but the sound of the unrelenting rain seemed to soften everything, even her tiny moan when he turned around and put his heavy hands on her hips. She sat up enough for him to fist the fabric of her damp shorts and bring them down her thighs. Charon could feel his hands shaking as she spread her legs to help him slip the fabric off her feet. It was worth noting her legs shook too.

“D-do you mind if I take my shirt off?” she asked. Why the fuck did she even ask, he thought, but said nothing and helped her with the thin cotton, exposing two beautiful breasts with hard nipples dusting the ends. The tips of them looked red and irritated, but the noise she made when he licked one wasn’t that of pain. 

“Charon…” she moaned softly, keeping the noises he got out of her to quiet sighs and bitten lips. She had not seemed to mind his mouth the last time, and this time proved no different. In fact, he noticed her shiver when he dragged his ruined lips over the peaks of her breasts, more so than that of his tongue sliding around them. Even gentle nips of his teeth didn’t compare to the rough texture of his skin against hers.

When he released her nipple from his mouth, her chest heaved and he felt her hand resting on the back of his neck, fingers prodding at the loose skin around his spine. Her brow wrinkle where she touched, but she did not look disgusted. A clap of thunder made her jerk against him, pressing soft breasts against his mouth once more. 

He spent minutes flicking his tongue around the hard buds, letting the weight of them fall in his hands over and over until she slid back, gasping before he was forced to support her with his hands tight on her bare back. The action pressed his erection into the tub, bringing his lust to a feverish ache. 

He had ignored the appendage before, and he would do so again.

“I don’t like the rain,” she whispered, holding him close, her legs spread around his waist and her breasts cushioning his face. He held her back, inhaling the tang of her flesh and allowing his eyes to close against the sound of her heart racing.

“Can you do it now?” she asked. So meek, so unlike her.

Charon nodded against her, giving one side of her soft flesh a nip with his teeth before helping her to sit up. She looked confused and nervous, but still flushed that beautiful healthy shade of pink. 

“It will be better with you on the sink,” he told her, watched her nod and allow him to heft her up, naked and smooth to sit on the edge of the sink. Her thin fingers gripped around the sides and slowly turned white. In truth having her this way would be easier on his back, since, despite the radiation, it still ached from carrying her halfway through the DC ruins in the pounding rain. He wanted nothing to distract him from this either.

She went red when he spread her thighs, staring between them at the soft flesh, dusted with light hair and dull shine. He eyed the door once more before running his thumb down her mound to catch on the swollen nub at the top of her slit. 

Even against the rain, he could hear her heavy breaths turning into pants, could hear his own ragged breathing as her musky scent made his erection pulse annoyingly. The smell of her was heady and almost clean despite the rain and the sweat. Last time she had tasted sour, but when he licked at her slit, cleaning off her wetness, she reminded him of something salty and sweet. Strong.

“God…” she whimpered, shivering. It flooded him like a drug - the plunger on some opiate like the ones they’d trained him on. 

Pleasure swam up his body and he could do little to suppress the loud snarl he made against her flesh, taking her into his mouth and sucking, sliding his tongue as deep as he could within her small body. She arched and made a chirping noise, thrusting down against his mouth and tongue. It was nothing like the first time, where she had kept her hands on her face, whimpering and lying still as he took the pain away. This time her hips began to rock against his lips, and when he flattened his tongue out against her clit she cupped the back of his skull and forced him harder against her.

“It feels… so good,” she gasped, “... just like last time. Charon...” 

Never had he heard anything better than that. She chanted it over and over, soft and quiet but also violently and desperate. He took his teeth to her and growled, wrapping his lips around her and sucking hard until she had both hands on his head, curled over him to the point that he had to hold her steady with his hands firmly on her sides.

But she was shifting too much, the sink biting into her ass so he peeled her fingers from around his head and pulled her off the sink despite her squirming. “... wait I didn’t…” she cried, but he was already pulling her down to her feet and turning her around. 

“Charon, don’t-” she trembled.

“I won’t,” he said, hands running up and down the backs of her thighs furiously, up her rear where he squeezed. She was about to say more but he spread her wide from behind and thrust his tongue inside her. A fresh leak of moisture hit his tongue and it tasted almost as good as her strangled moan. A roll of thunder vibrated the building and she cursed loudly as he forced her knee up on the lip of the sink so he could better reach her swollen clit, sucking it hard enough that she started to sob. Gently he pressed a thumb inside her, thrusting shallow enough to not hurt her as she tensed, choked and came.

Afterward, she cried softly, just as she did before. This time he was less surprised by it, but no less worried. The rain was still deafening and she was still herself, no less broken than before. He laid her down in the tub, a blanket covering her up to the chin. 

He sat against the wall when he was sure she was asleep and unzipped his pants enough to pull his erection from his pants. Charon watched himself stroke along the ugly, ruined appendage, imagining it was her small, white hand thumbing the slit and squeezing with each downward stroke.

He did not finish, he never did, suspected he wasn’t able to anymore. Just as well, he thought, looking back over at her sleeping face, still flushed with round lips parted in peace. Just as well… he figured, that he could only give and not get back.


	3. CHARON!

When she opened her eyes her nose wrinkled; sights and smells were all wrong. 

A part of her even recoiled from the sweaty heat encasing her, as though this wasn’t something everyone in the water sought after - this rare intimacy. 

The furious thrusting between her thighs even felt lackluster when she realized it was a nameless traveler she had wrapped around her, and not him. The fantasy was fading faster than she could repair it. Quickly she slammed her eyes shut and arched back into the wall, trying not to touch his bare arms, lightly dusted with hair. Instead, she held on around his collar with a hard grip, feeling leather and a fine film of soot.

It was still all wrong, but she’d threatened, not altogether jokingly, to kick this man’s balls in if he finished before her. She had time to work up to her edge, but it was far away still and his smooth cock and bare hips pressing into her kept her from returning to that necessary fantasy. Too smooth and sweaty, she frowned, looking once again at the man fucking her into the wall. He had dark hair, but here it nearly looked red under the bar’s orange bathroom lighting. That minor details helped. 

She tried imagining what Charon had looked like before his change. Tried to pretend she had a fully intact Charon between her legs, shaking with the feel of them both together, but that left an empty feeling in her gut and she went back to picturing ragged flesh and a rattling voice.

There was nothing wrong with this man she reminded herself, brought from her inner mind once again when he chuckled breathlessly against her neck, shifting himself inside her. He was trying… and he had all his teeth, didn’t stink, had bright blue eyes and even grimaced with a strong jawline. 

The man caught her attention earlier when he’d put a cigarette in his mouth and worked the tip around; his jaw moving similarly to the way Charon’s did when he was casually scouting a social area. Just one similar mannerism had her blood gushing in her loins. Nothing else about him was that similar, except perhaps the eyes and now the dark red light playing off the top of his head, but that shouldn’t matter now; it didn’t matter really. It could have been anyone right now, she’d still have to pretend she was with Charon… and no one quite compared to him.

It had been easier when she was fucking herself, she realized, moaning softly as the man’s deep thrust fleetingly touch that sweet spot inside her.

She blamed the free whiskeys that had initially taken her by surprise. Should have been in bed, crying out in pleasure as her fantasy Charon fucked her raw. But she’d drank the free booze and this idea had seemed more precious with each sip. So she took it, regretting it only now...

… now that she had this man cock deep inside her, angling his thrusts to please her as she’d demanded, but he may as well have been stuttering against her for all it did. He tried, truly he did… it wasn’t his fault. It was hers.

Again she shut her eyes and pretended it was better; pretended it was Charon gripping her bare ass - calloused fingers penetrating the soft flesh - jerking her against him as though his only goal was to fuck her into oblivion. 

Charon...

The man’s heavy breaths she imagined were instead vicious growls and brutal curses. The slick skin sliding along her inner thighs, no she pictured it being uneven and hard...like the wastes that bore her desire…made her need this; need her constant show, the threat at the end of her words, the bullet from her gun, the man - ghoul - that was always there. She needed Charon… but… it was never so easy.

“You close, baby?” a high voice asked, eager and tired. No, not even close.

It was all wrong.

“... wait…” she gasped, pushing him back by the white-knuckle grip on his collar. He groaned loudly and shook her hands away, which, to her surprise fell against his chest limp and useless. The harsh grip she’d had on him made her fingers prickle with the sudden release and her elbows give out like broken twigs.

This man that she mistakenly took into the bathroom fifteen minutes ago paused between her thighs, pinning her back against the wall - his cock deep - as he shifted an arm between them. About to growl and punch him for his audacity, she opened her mouth to tell him off when his thumb found her clit and any words on her tongue turned into a soft sigh.

That was better...

He swirled her nub until her eyes fell closed and all too quickly he began his thrusts again. She found herself smiling soon; hands-on his clothed shoulders and hips starting to grind back.

The man started to chuckle, giving her a few deep languid thrusts, slow and steady, before slobbering her neck with kisses, “Almost forgot about that little gem...you bitches and you’re buttons...” he breathed.

“No kissing,” she growled, shoving him back as his thumb worked her furiously and his hips snapped back and forth, obviously eager for her to finish so he could finally do what all men aimed to do. 

“... and no more talking,” she added, thrusting back with a steady glare. He chuckled again and a spike of annoyance lingered long after in her throat but the man gave her a wide berth, one hand on her rear and the other between them. She tightened her thighs around his hips to keep from slipping down as he pounded away. 

She aimed to get back to that depth of dissociation.

The darkness behind her eyelids provided a perfect backdrop. She could imagine what it would feel like if it were Charon inside her right now; less slippery maybe. A tighter fit indeed. She sighed softly as bliss throbbed in her belly. The uneven slopes of old, tattered skin and raised scar tissue would make a difference as well...each thrust would be a tiny thousand caresses.

Charon - fuck - he was a large man and she’d seen on enough occasions what he looked like from the waist down. Right now she fantasized about that cock, still slick enough looking despite the scars and the mass. It’d barely fit inside her with enough room to move as smoothly as this man was doing. Maybe it would hurt at first, maybe she’d want it to hurt...

She imagined it was different. 

Charon would need some coaxing, but enough reassurance and he’d even kiss her if she said the right words. She knew he would, and his tongue would be scorching hot. He’d taste like blood and smell like leather...oil and sour radiation. Every touch would leave a red welt on her skin. Teeth at her throat. Dry lips on her breasts. Thick, rough fingers between her legs and blunt nails scratching down her sides. And if he’d been here now, with all that radiation in his system...maybe that would lull her even deeper into euphoria.

“...fuck!” She gasped, tightened her grip and thrust back; cooing like a fucking bitch in heat as that molten ball started to spread below her navel. It’d been so long it seemed since this disappointing start and now that she was almost there, she laughed - so thankful it was coming to an end. 

She concentrated and urged that sweet feeling to spread, clenching her inner muscles in time with each thrust.

Visions swam behind her eyes: Charon’s hand between their bodies, pinching her nub and thumbing it until a swelling ache made her toes curl. His growls heavy in her ear, whispering her name on her skin and coaxing her into coming, begging her to. Needing it as much as she.

“... Charon…” It felt so good. His fingers. His cock. His heavy breathes and groans filtering past damaged vocal cords.

“... fuck, yess,” she gasped, feeling her hips grind and roll with each frantic thrust. So close.

“Yes… yes… yesss!” 

Charon was inside her, against her. His breath in her breath and she was so, so close. Just a little more and it was there. She squeezed her eyes shut, seeing purple and red splotches within the black and that hazy memory of his face as her body went stiff for a second, then buckled. Pleasure swam down her thighs and up her belly into her throat. 

She screamed and gasped and jerked.

“Charon!”

Suddenly the dark behind her eyes was replaced by redness and the delicious friction between her thighs was gone. Her eyes snapped open and she jerked back from the man against her so quickly he went backward, hitting the floor with a colorful curse. Barely making it to her own feet her heart stopped at the sight ahead of her.

She shoved her skirt down and felt her knees start to buckle, tears of mortification in her eyes as Charon stood gasping in the open doorway; murder in his eyes turning quickly into shock… the door was still banging back on its hinges. Had he run here thinking… oh god… oh fuck!

Her heart raced back up, faster than a firing assault rifle, and she felt the blood drain from her loins to rise into her cheeks. That soft-boned feeling of euphoria fell away like rain, leaving her cold and terrified. Not knowing what else to do she shrieked, “Get out!” it came out short and pathetic but he froze at her words. “Get out!”

Charon stared blankly at her until his blind-looking eyes went dark and narrow.

His black stare looked over at the man on the floor - looking petrified with his cock still out - once, Charon’s fist curling in promised violence before she yelled again and the ghouls slowly backed out of the door frame, growling so low and deep in his chest she almost went to her knees before the door slammed shut. A sudden, thrown punch on the other side of the door spiked her belly with fear.

He hadn’t gone far, she knew that. If anything he was right around the corner waiting for her...

“... oh my god…” she whimpered, slowly sinking to her knees. 

The man was forgotten next to her and maybe he said something, asked something even, but in the end, she only heard him zip up his pants and leave. She was alone in the bathroom, left there to stare into her hands; pink from holding on so long and so hard. 

How could she walk out that door now and face him? She shut her eyes and felt moisture trickle down her cheeks. That pleasant ache from her orgasm was still there and it didn’t care about the current issue at hand. It helped her focus on something relaxing long enough to get to her feet, clean herself off and splash her face with some water.

“What were you thinking… fucking idiot,” she whispered to her reflection.

She looked awful. Blood-shot eyes stared back at her; dark eyelids drooping from the climax and whiskeys. The face looking back at her looked shell shocked; like she pictured someone would look if they’d turned from their cooking to see the mushrooms clouds outside the kitchen window. Or maybe this is how she looked when she’d stepped into the purifier, with Charon on the other side of the glass, throwing fists into the barrier with furious howling noises she couldn’t put into words.

With a shaking hand, she wiped the moisture and sweat from her face with a palm. She could psych herself into this. Just like before the Purifier… she had less time then than she did now. She could do this. She had to. There was no living out her days alone in this fucking bathroom, that was for sure. She had to leave eventually and no matter how long she waited she knew he’d be on the other side of that door...

So she adjusted her clothes and pulled her dignity out from the dusty corner it had fled to, wearing it like armor as she left the bathroom to find Charon against the wall opposite her, leaning back with arms crossed and an incensed expression on his face. 

He wouldn’t say anything, she knew… but he’d stay silent and curse her with his eyes. There was no way he didn’t know what had just happened; what his name on her lips had been for. Too smart for that - too perceptive. If he hadn’t known it then he knew it now with the way she held herself before him. No doubt she looked smaller to him than normal, what with her lowered shoulders and bent spine - the very picture of defeat.

She’d scream his name while she was fucking some guy in the Muddy Rudder bathrooms. 

How Charon had found her, since she’d said she was gonna call it a night at the Motel and he was still supposed to be getting a wound tended at Dr. Preston’s, she didn’t know. Wouldn’t ask it now or ever. The point was someone had told him after he’d gone looking for her after finding she wasn’t in the room. He must have been looking for her in the bar and heard her, or some asshole had told him what she was doing - that she’d dragged a man in the stalls for a drunken fuck. In that scenario, he shouldn’t have rushed in for her… no, he had to have heard her screams and his name...

Time-tarnished bandages were poking from the collar of Charon’s black shirt, probably wrapping all the way around his right shoulder and under his chest. 

Dislocated shoulder, massive muscular tearing and tendon ruptures. Only so much that radiation can do on the spot she remembered telling him, laughing with him as he fought off the pain when they’d been walking the bridge to Rivet City that afternoon. He’d let her think she was helping him walk through the market, but they both knew she’d never be able to support his weight.

Shame washed over her. At least twice she opened her mouth to say something, anything but never did. He didn’t make any move to help her with any of it; she didn’t do much but glare at her.

If anything at least she knew how he felt about this, instead of any shared feeling or admitted interested she got anger. At least she didn’t have to bite her lip at night, resort to her fingers and wonder if he’d accept her sliding in next to him, running her hand down his stomach to grasp the object of her desire. No more wondering how much better those cold nights in the wastes would be with him wrapped around her, making all the bad melt away with his touch.

She thinned her lips and looked away, cheeks going pink again as her thoughts grew dark. It wasn’t the time, she chastised herself, giving him one last, long look. He gave nothing away but more black anger so she sighed and ran a hand through her damp hair and said the one thing she knew she had to say, “I’m sorry.”

That night the room she’d bought them both to share, was hers alone. 

He hadn’t said a word back after her apology, just followed her to the Motel, watched her walk inside and closed the door on her. It was more like being escorted by a slaver to the pens than anything, and despite her heady embarrassment, she found it in her to be angry at him too. He’d been gone when she opened it back up to catch him, maybe beg him to understand...or more likely to yell at him. But he’d vanished quickly enough and she could do nothing but bathe herself in the sink and replay the events over and over again in her mind. 

Nothing could take her thoughts off it. 

That night, as she slept alone in the big bed, she had nightmares about waking up alone, not being able to find Charon through an endless maze of watery corridors. She dreamt she’d go back to Megaton alone, wishing he’d turn up but never would. She even dreamt he came to bed and beat her. Horrible, lucid nightmares ran with her until she woke up in a heavy sweat; an unfamiliar tapping noise perking her up instantly. Someone was in the room, and instinct had her grabbing her pistol under the pillow, cocking it in the dark and aiming for that noise near the writing desk.

“Charon?” she whispered to the dim, dark outline of a figure. It had to be him, even in the black of the room with nothing but dim rail lighting to showcase his, she couldn’t imagine anyone else filling up the space he did. He was at times too noticeable.

Pistol still aimed, she reached to flip the lamp on. Orange, patronizing nuka-red light flooded the room. 

He was dwarfing the chair he sat in, an elbow resting on the desk where a med-x syringe lay between his thumb and finger. His shirt was rolled up over his stomach, his other hand on his abdominals as if in the process of giving himself an injection to the fresh wound on his shoulder.

It still pained him then. She hung her head and lowered the gun to her lap, eventually moving it to rest on the bedside table. 

Her nightmares were still at the forefront of her mind, but she would go to him regardless. They’d been through worse together, this would just be another mountain to climb… maybe they’d be closed afterward even. She could only hope.

Hesitantly, she crawled out of bed and got to her feet, padding slowly over to him. 

Charon didn’t move a muscle as she approached; his stare never wavering on her. Like she was a stalking predator, that’s how he stared at her. It hurt, but she tried to smile, pulling a chair out from beside him and gently took the needle from his hand, feeling him jerk back at the brief touch of their fingers. That cut deep…

“Just want to help,” she whispered.

She paused, looking him over, saw the acceptance in his eyes as she held the needle in her fingers. With a heavy exhale - breath rattling out of his lungs - he lifted the black shirt, so old and riddled with holes it was a wonder it didn’t rip when he stretched it over the wounded shoulder. Rough, leather-like flesh was like a balm for her soul when it touched her fingers. For a moment she was afraid she’d actually moaned, but she couldn’t read any awareness of such a thing in his eyes. He just gazed down at her; inner thoughts covered in a mask of indifference.

That was the hardest thing about him, she realized - not the scars or the bone… but that mask he always wore. If it cracked it was when he could smell blood on the horizon… or when she sealed him on the other side of that glass, and let him think he could pull her back out of that chamber.

It was all wrong.

When she pushed her palm into his chest and eased the needle in under his collar bone, he made a guttural noise in his throat. It was so loud in the silence and unexpected she almost jerked with the needle in his muscle, but her heart merely thumped loud in her ears before she plunged the drugs into his system.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked, seeing his mouth part a second before he snapped his teeth together and hissed. Maybe it was the drugs… though she didn’t think he’d be so vocal from a high like this.

Against her hand, his chest expanded and he breathed deeply, if not irregular. 

The drug worked quickly and his dose was large enough to knock her back for days, but in him...she didn’t know. His eyes were closed when she capped the needle and tossed it on the desk, her hand hesitating in mid-air, wanting to touch his thigh, but settling on her own instead.

When their eyes met she swallowed a lump in her throat, feeling ready to choke while he appeared to stare through her. For the first time since she’d met him, she wondered what that glare did to others in the past… when he’d been intact. Did women have the same reaction to him then as she did now? Was he used to this sort of problem? - but hadn’t expected it now? What happened before her, before them, he never spoke of. There was no way of knowing, even if she asked.

When he spoke, she tensed in apprehension.

“What’s wrong with you?” He asked, an edge of confusion and insult around each word.

What was wrong with her? Nothing, she almost spat, but that look he gave her… she could feel every single goosebump rising over her arms and legs with perfect clarity. She couldn’t just lie to him. So many things were wrong, but what could be done about them now? Hadn’t she already declared it all with his name?

When she didn’t answer him he continued, only after palming the pack of cigarettes beside his elbow on the desk. He didn’t look at her when he said, in a rare expression of disbelief, “You have a thing for ghouls it seems, can’t say I expected that. I doubt you’ve thought hard enough about it either.” 

She parted her lips to speak but he cut her off with a well-timed growl in his throat, “And who knows what that bastard could have done to you if I hadn’t found you in time.”

She watched him put a smoke between his lips, light it with a flip of his thumb, and work it around between his lips; breathing in deep. 

“I don’t have a ghoul fetish, Charon,” it was all she thought to say before his later words caught up with her, “And… I can take care of myself in most situations… especially the one you found me in tonight, as embarrassing as it was.”

He paused, stared down at her and waited. She felt trapped all of a sudden. Being put on the spot was never something she felt confident about, give her some scrap metal and a few broken terminals and she was at home. This… communication thing was never her strong point.

She breathed and bared her soul, “I said your name while I was getting fucked by that man… that doesn’t mean I was thinking about any ghoul in his place. I was thinking of you… and you can be angry about that all you want, but it doesn’t change anything. Not for me.”

He only stared back - that smoke loose between his lips.

“I had really hoped this wouldn’t be your reaction,” she ended on a whispered, looking down between them. She could hear her heart thudding in her chest and blood rushing into her face, but she stood her ground and waited in silence for him to say something, anything. If he didn’t feel that way about her in return then he needed to say so, or else she’d turn his next words around in her favor. Somehow. She knew she would.

He smoked his cigarette and let curls of smoke lace his next words, “Why not say something?”

Oddly enough, it was easier now to respond with a breadth of confidence in each word, “I’ve felt this way for a long time now… but… with your contract I-” she swallowed, “-how do I even broach something like this with you without..without thinking whatever came afterward was that fucking paper talking… or-” She couldn’t continue but her greatest fear had already happened - that it wasn’t the contract, it was him that just didn’t see her in that light. Rejection was what she feared the most...

It felt like minutes had gone by before he said anything back, but he did eventually and Charon chose his words carefully, as though she’d been kicked in the head a few times, “The contract doesn’t work that way. You know that, and you should have said something.”

Her lips stretched into a sad smile. Yes, she knew that… and he knew that she knew that. Smart son-of-a-bitch that he could be.

“Sometimes it’s easier to live with something being wrong your whole life than confront it, I suppose” she whispered, rubbing the bend of her arm nervously, “Besides… it’s not like I didn’t hint at it often enough.”

She shook her head, feeling bitter laughter bubble out of her throat. The room felt too warm and she could swear his gaze was burning a hole through her forehead. Her hands itched to grab around her arms, put up a wall...any wall. She’d never been so utterly honest about something she felt so secretive about, not that she had many secretes, even fewer from him. 

Her desire for Charon was terrifying in its intensity. All-consuming and it had to come out now.

“If I’d have known you felt this way,” he rumbled on a breath of smoke, “you wouldn’t have been fucking that vermin in the dark...”

She held her breath, not willing to look up.

“You’d be fucking me.” He said it low enough that the vibration in his voice made her nearly stop breathing. “Every chance we had. You’d be dealing with everything else that comes with it too. Regardless of the contract.”

He shifted, stubbed out the smoke and leaned in close enough that she could see red reflect in his eyes, “What I almost did to that bastard is nothing compared to what I’ll do to the next one if we do this. You can’t just have me for as long as it suits you...” 

She sucked in a breath and dared to look up at him from under her lashes. She found an equally desperate pair of eyes looking back at her; eyes clouded in old anger and molten lust. They looked nearly like burning coals against the lamp in the corner. This was happening… it was finally happening.

If he was saying yes in his own way, then she wasn’t waiting anymore.

She felt herself standing from her chair like one would feel a touch in a dream. He followed her, locking his knees...slamming his chair back where it clattered to the floor - the noise glaringly loud as it broke the silence. Hands, his hands, were on her, pulling her close. They slid down her sides, settled on her hips and squeezed tight. She moaned and he growled and it was fucking beautiful.

“Fuck me then. Please, “ she whimpered, wondering if she sounded as awful on his ears as she did to hers; pathetic she thought.

A pleasing growl, a squeeze to her ass and hot breath on her neck told her how he felt about her words. It still shamed her enough that she merely touched her palms innocently to his chest when what she really wanted was to wrap her arms around his neck and climb him like a damn tree.

When she finally flushed her body against his, he jerked her around hard enough that she had to grapple against his biceps to keep herself from buckling. Charon didn’t care for her to be standing though, she realized this as her calves hit the bed and he quickly shoved her down. Not ungently. 

Her heartbeat was so fast she feared it’d break her ribs open.

All of a sudden his mass was everywhere; hot, musky and dark. A second ago, it seemed, she was sitting before him, a needle in her hand. Now her senses were stuffed with him so completely she couldn’t form a word, not even a sound. Between the bed and him she was trapped and cared nothing about getting free.

“I’m going to make good use of that fucking drug,” he growled, tearing off the rest of his shirt and shoving a knee between her thighs, finally garnering a short sound from her, “knew there was a reason I grabbed it.”

His hot mouth was on her neck before she could say anything back. Just as searing as she’d imagined. Wet, rough lips and a slick, dexterous tongue tracing under her jaw. Charon’s hands squeezed her flesh, pulling her hips into his thigh with smooth rocking motions that stimulated that still tender nub of flesh between her thighs. It made her dizzy; made her eyes flutter closed.

“I feel like I’m high…” she moaned.

The touch, his touch electrified her. She jerked back and forth against his planted thigh, thrust herself into the solid mass and let out a guttural moan, feeling victorious. This single moment felt like a thousand headshots, a hundred near-death moments… like waking up from a coma and realizing she was alive and he was right there next to her, but so much better. Everything suddenly came to life. Every place his fingers stroked, his teeth grazed, his tongue laved, lips sucked...it was fucking fire. And she loved it.

It felt like he gave her years of passion in seconds.

Words of love were on her lips but he withdrew from her after a lingering bite to her throat, sealing her voice away. 

“Me too…” he groaned, staring down at her no doubt flushed face and drooping eyelids.

Charon looked half-crazed himself; teeth bared and chest heaving. His massive hands, gloveless and raw-looking, smoothed down her sides. The touched teased her through her thin shirt. A pinch snapped her eyes open and she caught sight - through her hazy mind - a small red patch welling up from his bandages, just above his breast.

She raised a hand to his right arm, laid it there and saw the red grow outwards like a pool; pink and then dark...

“Your shoulder-” she managed.

“I can’t feel it, not anymore.”

He proved that as he plucked her up, hands under her lower back and thighs. He shifted her to the center of the bed before getting to his feet. A hard look was plastered on his face but he stood over her, bare-chested but for the bandages without an ounce of shame. Quickly, she rose to her elbows. 

“What are you doing?” she asked; in a way pleading for him to cover her up again.

She needed to fill the distance between them. One taste and she was starving now, but he grunted and she paused - it was the same noise he made when he wanted her to hang back before stepping into unfamiliar, open terrain. She didn’t move a muscle.

Almost hesitantly his hands went to his belt, pausing on the buckle only a second before undoing it with deft hands. Her body thrummed with energy when he yanked the buckle from its loops - making a soft sound that caused moisture to gather between her thighs.

When Charon paused again she noticed for the first time that he looked...nervous. She smiled, feeling her heart swell, “You know I’ve seen it before…” quickly she added, “that one time.” 

She’d seen it more than once. Spied on him a few times too when they’d been home or he’d gone behind a boulder to relieve himself. Always running back to her spot before he got back, feeling both devilish and guilty.

“Not like this.” He growled.

Her tiny, almost confident smile wavered before her eyes lowered to the bulge just below his stiff fingers. 

Not seen him hard? she thought. That didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, did it? Tension in her limbs came back as he lowered his head, watching himself undo the clasp at his leather pants. 

The zipper came down and she bit her lip to stop from making any embarrassing noises.

Maybe he had a point…

She eyed his cock as it hung towards her, stiff and swollen looking with a shine of moisture at the tip. It would have been odd to see him with a normal-sized penis, she knew that… and she knew he didn’t have one that was of average size from the times she’d seen it limp in his hand or at his thigh. But even gripped in his large hand it didn’t look any less frightening. Especially in the red light, it looked evil… and she couldn’t help but chuckle a little… nervous suddenly.

Charon arched a brow, sneered and squeezed himself tightly at the base. A drop of pre-cum slid down the tip and she licked her lips, suddenly thirsty.

“Something funny?” he rumbled, all seriousness.

She couldn’t help it, she grinned despite how she doubtlessly shouldn’t have; how she had no reason to feel comfortable with laughing and smiling at his cock just yet, but she’d had no idea before now how fucking enormous it really was or could be.

“It’s just…” she gulped down another chuckle and tore her eyes off his cock to stare up at him with a tender smile, “you’re a bit bigger than I remember.”

“I’d hope so.” There was nothing light about his tone but she saw the corner of his mouth lift up in a smirk that would have been arrogant on any other man but him. He was referring to the time she’d walked in on him changing, back at Megaton months ago...

Her smile blew up into a wolfish grin, “Of all the times I’ve seen it… I didn’t really think about it getting much larger.”

“Of all the times?” his eyes narrowed but that curve in his mouth grew, “The girl from the vault, a spying bird. Peeping on a monster like me.” She didn’t correct him. He seemed to like his comparison so she swallowed any words and gave a short nod; eyes trailing back down to his angry, jutting cock.

She heard his teeth gnash together and watched his hand squeeze tight, running up the length of his cock from root to tip. A deep rumble vibrated in his chest as he stroked himself once more before stepping to the bed where she tried not to scramble to her knees too desperately. Her hands touched Charon’s bare chest, ran fingers down the jut of his hip bones and followed that ‘V’ of muscle to where he held himself in hand. She stroked the pads of her fingers over his knuckles and down to where the moisture was drooling out of his tip; slippery and clear.

“Maybe later you can think of some way to punish me, hmm?” she murmured, swiping her tongue over her lower lip. 

She heard him groan loudly, wondering what he’d do if she swallowed him whole. Visibly, his cock was pulsing and it couldn't be helped, she leaned down and laved her tongue over the weeping slit - hands on his hips - tasting the salty rich fluid like it was the last drop of whiskey from the top shelf. He reeked of leather and gunpowder; sharp and raw. It should have repulsed her - this violent smell - but it did the opposite.

There was a growl and then Charon’s fingers were running through her hair and her mouth was closing in around his tip, sucking softly as her hands ran around to dig fingers into his lower back. He bucked forward and then immediately retreated as if he hadn’t meant to thrust himself deeper past her lips. But she moaned and followed him back, engulfing his cock as best she could; tongue sliding on his underside before hollowing out her cheeks to suck.

“You better not have gone to your knees for that bastard,” he threatened, gripping the back of her head gently as she traced the ridges of scars over his length with her lips and the tip of her tongue. She peered up at him and smile around his cock, telling him with her eyes that he had to have known she hadn’t. 

Charon nodded, groaned, closed his eyes and thrust his hips, filling her mouth. 

When she sucked deeply he hissed and jerked back, slipping out of her mouth. His hand went to his cock and squeezed the base; breath rattling in his lungs. There was a glimmer of fear in his eyes. He’d been close...

“Turn around.” He demanded.

With a few fingers to her lips, that raw taste still lingering, she shook her head, smiled and said, “I don’t think so.”

Charon’s eyes lowered and a crease formed between his brows before he sneered and went to grab at her closest thigh. She evaded and shifted back to the center of the bed, just out of his reach. There, right under his merciless gaze, she lifted her shirt above her head, baring small breasts and the scars along her stomach with a soft sigh. Those eyes of his, all over her flesh… it could, with time, make her come all on its own.

“ ‘I don’t think so,’ she says...” he mocked, watching her hands reach the hem of her shorts.

Just before he put a knee on the bed, she shifted out of her cotton shorts, got them down her thighs just in time for him to help rip them off her legs, tossing them to the floor. She thought he was about to kiss her, but Charon’s hands ran up her bare thighs instead. He squeezed her hips and yanked her forward to where she fell back on the bed with a soft bounce. But she was back on her elbows in time to see him pulling her into his lap; cock resting over her mound.

It reached an inch below her navel, leaving a smear of wetness over her skin that cooled on her instantly.

“Fuck…” she breathed out, unable to look away as he grappled her behind the knees, raising one long smooth leg against his chest. A nip at her ankle with dull teeth made her shudder. His thumb stroked the back of her other knee until she hooked it around his hip - the raised skin and muscle scratching against her calf.

“No one but me.” His voice cut slowly through the fog swimming behind her eyes, slow enough that she should have easily been able to understand. But she didn’t though, try as she might.

He was watching the sight between their legs, jerking back and forth, running himself through the softness over her mound. The light curls cushioning his cock tickled as he moved. Waiting was nearly painful. She’d already waited long enough. 

Now, she needed him now. Needed him to fuck the feeling of that other nameless man out of her; mark her, break her skin, stain her in bruises if he so desired. She wanted it all.

Again he spoke - the sound like distant thunder, “I’ll be the last inside you. Tell me…tell me I’ll be the only one from now on.” The vulnerability in his voice was surprising, so unlike him, she almost looked away; embarrassed.

She blinked back something wet in her eyes and smiled, nodding shortly so as not to spill the moisture in her lashes. “I promise. I’ve only ever wanted you.” She heard those words echo in her own ears as Charon growled and leaned over - her leg stretching in a breakout of heat - and then he was there. 

Right fucking there.

Fear, lust, desperation and a strange overbearing weight of love made her shudder. Without another thought she rolled her hips, found his head with her slick center and thrust forward, impaling herself only so far before he seized her throat, bracing her as he bucked forward with a throaty growl. So full...she shuddered. A tear leaked out the corner of her eye and she sobbed silently.

“... kiss me.” She pleaded.

He didn’t move, nor make a sound except those great, damaged breaths. She shivered, opening her eyes to see him studying her; still guarded and suspicious. He might always feel that way, she thought. It was a sad idea, but she wouldn’t let it bother her now. She couldn’t beg, didn’t have the proper thought for it. Not with him buried as far as he could go inside her. The burn was so good she reached up and grasped his face herself, bringing him down for an open-mouthed kiss.

Blood, that’s what she tasted when she got her tongue between his teeth to touch his own. Blood and ashes, but it set her heart afire and - gasping against his lips - she slanted her mouth and licked at his tongue a second time before he gave her a hesitant bite. When she moaned Charon kissed her back, but it wasn’t gentle and it wasn’t as insecure as she’d thought it would be. Rough lips kneaded her own half-raw and his teeth would take hold of her lower lip before he’d delve back in for another taste of her. Tongue flicking against her teeth and the roof of her mouth. What did she taste like to him, she wondered. Perhaps the polar opposite of his own flavor. Sweet maybe.

It was then, when she was cooing into his mouth, that he pulled out of her, all the way, hissing against her lips, “What was I doing to you when you called for me…” 

Another slick kiss, and a bite to her puffy lip, “My name, what made you shout it.” He left a pathway of raised skin from nips, and spit from wet kisses and swipes of his tongue down her jaw and the front of her throat.

“Tell me.”

When the hot cavern of his mouth enclosed over a puckered nipple she arched and slid a hand to the back of his neck. The pronounced ridges of his spine took her by surprise but he bit the nipple in his mouth and her eyes fluttered closed. She was thinking of this. All of this.

She opened her mouth to speak but his fingers found her clit and gave it a pinch, ripping a scream from her throat, not the words he’d asked for.

The wet heat of his cock hung and nudged against her inner thigh, teasing so terribly she pulled away from his mouth and reached down to seize him at his base. Her stomach clenched when she noted how her fingers barely touched around his girth. That had been inside her moments ago. She needed it back within her. The sooner the better. But not before he got his answer.

“I was imagining how deep you could fuck me before it hurt…” she pushed her cheek to his, squeezed his cock and whispered, “... and if I would ask you to stop when it did.”

At that he let her guide him back to her and gave a forceful thrust, their hips smacking together. His teeth were clenched and his jaw was tight - eyes blazing. It was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen. A furious Charon, with his back bowed and blood seeping from his shoulder, working himself inside her at a slow, ragged pace.

She screamed; literally howled when he slammed forward. Her back arched, pressing her breasts into his open mouth and hurriedly grasped at his forearms, bracing herself so she could smack her hips back and forth into his. It was so fucking deep. So intense. She could see starbursts of purple and white through the narrow slit of her vision, and behind them, there Charon was, bearing down on her with all his massive presence.

It hurt, she couldn’t deny it, but what didn’t hurt anymore? 

She heard him grunt her name, or at least she imagined it vividly.

If there was going to be pain then she wanted this to be the cause of it. His rabid thrusts resounded dark, sweet pain through the root of her belly, but it left lingering spasms of pleasure in its wake. Every slap of meeting flesh gave a greater spark of white behind her eyes.

She gasped, dug her nails into his arms and choked out, “I pretended he was you… but it was all wrong…” his tongue was slipping along the tops of her breast, meeting a nipple every few thrusts, each caress making her whimper, “I’ve been so desperate… for you.”

Charon’s hot, breath made sweat gather between her breasts - the room had grown sweltering but when he sat up, never breaking his dangerous rhythm, that sweat cooled and she felt like flames were licking her skin. Her senses were overloaded… so fucking overloaded.

“For how long?” he managed between quiet grunts. Each roll of his hips made her inner thighs quiver around him, and that rasping voice struck her deep between the ribs. Everything was hot, cold, erratic and yet slow. Nothing had ever felt quite like this before.

She twisted the stained sheets between her fingers, pulled them taut underneath her and whimpered, “Since I woke up…” the Purifier, “and you were right there watching over...me.” It had been before that even, but she’d known for sure then that it hadn’t been a mere curiosity. 

“You were standing, by me… for weeks… so... long… oh-god!”

She’d known then that she loved him. But she couldn’t admit that now. Not now.

Her confession seemed to spur him on. Charon’s even-paced thrusts - each one reaching that depth that shot currents of pleasure down to her fingers and toes - began to falter. His rhythm grew messy and hurried. Coarse fingers slid along her skin, slippery with sweat, trying to find his grip on her. All the while, chalky orbs traced every curve in sight, watched every move and when she released the sheets with one hand to fumbled along a peaked breast, she saw his eyes dart over, consuming the sight.

“Charon...” she whispered softly, sighing as that sweet flutter started to fill a previously empty spot below her navel. She found his eyes, heavy and heated, before releasing her breast to cup the back of his neck. This time he followed her guidance, eager and passionate when she slid her mouth over his. Tongues curling.

Taste. Smell. Touch. She had a lucid vision of him as the wastes embodied. Born of it. Dangerous and alluring. Everything about him felt, tasted and smelt so good. She wrapped her other arm around him and licked deeper into his mouth, trying to chase that taste of death.

“More,” she gasped into his mouth, kissing and biting at his lips, “... more.”

His hands plucked up her bottom, pulling it off the bed and her with it, sliding her into his lap where his cock reach so deep she sobbed against his mouth. It was a glorious, triumphant sort of pain and a deadly, addictive pleasure. The combination of both sent her toppling down that edge, slowly. It came on softly but only kept building until tears stung her eyes. His fingers dug so hard into her hips, trying to keep her from bucking out of his grasp that she could feel the bruises already forming.

Her lips slipped away and his chest scratched the tips of her breasts as she rode him - the pleasure mounting until she tried to scream, but all that came out was a silent cry and a quiet, tiny whimper.

Each muscle in her body both seized up and relaxed in a span of seconds. Her insides gripping his cock like a vice, so hard she could hear him hissing in her left ear, still moving within her despite the tight fit.

“Fuck… fuck.” She could hear him cursing now, through the buzzing in her head. The chanting of her name followed and his rocking hips grew fast, callous and eager. 

Charon bit at her shoulder, licked up her neck while she kept moaning, worked her over his cock and finally...finally she felt it. That warm rush within her, that pulse. His limbs locked and he gave a quick thrust, followed by a choked sound. Three more ragged pumped of his hips and she could feel his lax muscles under her wandering hands, his back shaking with each gulping breath.

His bandages were unraveled, and the sharp stink of blood came through when she rested her forehead at his neck. Gushes of his hot breath filtered through her hair, making the back of her neck sweat. Her heartbeat loudly in her ears, throbbing in her throat and ears, but past it, she could feel his too…

“Charon…” she said softly, mostly to herself. It was hard to believe this had happened. She spoke his name again and smiled, feeling it quickly spread into a massive grin when he gave her rear a lingering squeeze and groaned. She chuckled and gave his neck a kiss while stroking her fingers along his ragged body. Finally, she felt satiated; content.

He was here. 

It wasn’t a dream. 

He was still here, breathing deeply and running beaten palms up her back to her shoulders and then down again. The touch acted like a drug. All the endorphins her body was pumping out at his attentions made her eyes droop closed. 

She’d never felt so comfortable, so safe and so damn tired.

With a tilt of his hips and a tug against her rear, he slid out of her. Warm semen leaked out, stained her thighs and she - to her surprise - didn’t mind the feeling at all. It was… good.

When he laid her down, collapsing at her side with a throaty rumble, she didn’t even bother wiping the mess away. Leave it for the morning, she thought, as she twisted to sling an arm around his waist and bury her face in the crook of his shoulder, smelling blood and leather. So wrapped up in his presence and the lingering orgasmic euphoria that she barely realized until moments before sleep that he had gone stiff against her.

“Charon?”

There was no response, so she lifted her head to peer up at him. Eyes dead ahead and mouth pressed tightly closed.

A sudden feeling of trepidation clung to her throat, trapping away her words. Did he… regret this? Was he really jealous of that other man? - had it not been good for him, or as good as he’d thought it should have been? So many insecurities ran through her head. So many worries and questions and regrets were forming, but when he turned his head, winced and gave her a crooked smirk she let her lips part in relief.

Then he spoke.

“If Harkness questions you about that son of a bitch you were calling my name earlier, don’t mention how I might have been the one to knock his front teeth down his throat.”

And there it was, the surprisingly pleased and arrogant side of Charon that had at first confused the fuck out her, but now she felt a slight thrill for. Knowing he’d been so jealous to have broken community rules for a bit of - at the time - needles violence, it made her ache all over again. 

“Angry?” he asked, shifting on his side to pull her in against him; possessive almost.

“It wasn’t his fault he followed a drunk and desperate woman into a bathroom….” all coy and sweet, but not the least bit angry. “Boys will be boys.”

“Likely excuse.”

His tone made her hide another grin. She’d been worried he’d fall into a brooding mood after this, but he seemed relaxed, almost content, something he hadn’t been in a long, long time.

“Hey, Charon?”

Charon, nose against her forehead, gave a grunt of acknowledgment, sounding closer to sleep than she’d been before. Those passion-laced words were in her throat, on her tongue and pressing against her teeth, but she couldn’t release then now. Something told her to hold them in. Maybe until morning, maybe day or months from now… but not then.

So instead of confessing things like love and her months of desperate longing for him, she gave his chin a small kiss and said, simply, “Good night.” 

She’d have plenty of opportunities to tell him how she really felt. And then, just maybe, he’d say those words back. 

Her eyes closed long after his had. Too busy mapping the ridges and scars that covered his body and reminding herself he’d still be there in the morning - that this still will have taken place when she woke up. It was with the thought of doing it all over again that made her smile, and eventually, she drifted off with his arms wrapped tightly around her.


	4. Daydreams

Her sweet little finger, pale and smooth hooked in, between the soft leather of his belt buckle and pants, tugging forward to make room for another that touched his bare abdomen. Warmth pooled in around her finger. A cool patch where her nail was, tingled against a strip of open flesh. 

He could look down and see her, just a wet, coy smile and nothing else, whispering filth. Slick, pink tongue poking against white teeth. A hiss followed and his gut twisted. The noise beheld her fingers yanking and jerking at his belts, a laugh made his chest vibrate but his breath left him when a silky hand slid down, fingers parting as she met his hard cock. Her grip was smooth and tight; possessive. 

He nearly came with a silent shudder. 

A delicate giggle stopped him short and he opened his eyes to find an empty spot before him, his pants tight, full of an unattended cock and the girl seated at the bar with two ghouls and a dog. 

Reality, he thought, terrified that'd he went so deep still on his feet. 

Charon did not blink for the next eight minutes, too frightened. He'd almost spilled in his pants, standing as he was in the cobweb-infested corner, with her body angled towards him. A curve in her waist, enough that he could see the gap between jeans and shirt. She hypnotized him. Pale skin, so unlike the tan of her cheeks and arms, glared at him. Like a deer in headlights, he recalled, thanking his armor for a thick plating protecting his modesty. Not that she seemed to care much for that word, or it’s meaning. 

Looking at her he would think she was back in the vault, family, and friends surrounding her.

Nothing to fear. That's what she acted like, a woman with nothing to fear. But nothing could be further from true. He could see two ghouls with unfriendly eyes on her, not including his own perverse gaze. One, Quinn, was another unexpected face in the bar, hanging on the girl’s words as she turned her body from ghoul to ghoul, dishing out her attention in spades. 

It was sick, her level of innocence.

Charon felt a raw knot of jealousy and lust when he caught sight of her small, unmarred hand patting Quinn on the arm in good humor. 

These sensations were not of his best known and thus not well ignored. She looked all too soft and sweet, leaning with one elbow on the bar, a hand bent on a plush hip. He wanted to sink his hands in the flesh of her ass, slide the hard length of his cock up her naked stomach and then back down to her cunt. Charon wanted to feel the drip of her coat him; lubricate him so he could sheath himself to her very bottom with a single vile thrust. He wanted to ruin her, more than he'd wanted to taint anything or anyone else before. 

If he closed his eyes he could hear her long, pealing scream - the bruised flesh as he stretched her. He could almost taste the tang of her sweat when he'd finally take a bite of her throat. 

Charon found her outside the doors as he smoked a cigarette. No, he was disposing of a mangled corpse. Dumping the piles of meat and rotten flesh in a bin of fire when he caught her eyes across the lobby. She would be frozen in horror, eyes wet and scared. 

She did have such an innocent complexion and he'd seen it fall once before. This would be one of those times it'd drop, and he'd light up a smoke with a smirk until she had no choice but to move back or forward. 

Not to be mistaken for a pushover she'd continue on, stiff but moving forward, eyeing him as he stared down at her. Like a wolf at the throat of a fawn, he mused. She'd be helpless. 

Only when she was close enough to inhale would he attack, pull her back into an alcove down the right hallway, kicking and hissing. No one would have seen them there, let alone care to hear her screams. That was where he'd fuck her - thrust upon a moldy desk with his fingers clamped to her hips and his teeth bared like a vicious animal. 

In his dreams, she'd never go willingly, but halfway through her tears, he'd hear her moan and whine for more, meeting his jarring motions with unpracticed enthusiasm. 

Charon could never figure out why he got off to the detailed thought of her resisting him. Sometimes he imagined her nails tearing down his face as he spread her legs wide. Once he'd visualized the blood coating his cock as he tore her virgin cunt open...

He'd yet to see any relief of these fantasies. His own touch disgusted him and he'd yet to allow himself to delve too deeply into his perverse thoughts to finish in his little, precious time alone.

But she was just across the room and smiling sheepishly at some tale. He felt in his gut he could finish right where he stood if he tried. 

He didn't try anything in the end. 

In the end, he watched her leave the bar, giving him a short wave that he chose to ignore, much to her obvious upset, if the narrowed eyes and bite to her lower lip was any indication. That was the worst of it, that she was pleasant to him despite his initial impression. 

If only she knew what he thought of her, while she was drinking and smiling and flushing hotly. 

That night he imagined pinning her in the dust of The Mall, her jeans shoved over her ass and his cock so far up her cunt he could feel her heartbeat. He pictured her sobbing face with globs of tears catching dust and snot running down her face. Her round chin scraping on the ground as he jerked her little body back and forth in his fury. 

Instead of nearly losing his load he felt like spilling his guts. Sleep found him as he fought off a deep rolling bought of nausea. 

That fucking girl had ruined him. But...he had to admit, when she waltzed into the bar the next morning, returning to him only a few minutes later with a huge smile and his contact folded in her palm, she’d made sure he’d ruin her right back.


	5. Learning

“Put it to your chest,” he demanded, glaring down at her as the tears started to fall. A taste of things to come if he didn’t nip it in the bud.

“I know how to shoot!” she barked - defensive like a crippled animal in a snare.

“Not anymore,” and that of all things must have gotten through her thick skull because her lips quivered only a second longer before thinning out in a determined line. 

“Put it to your chest,” he repeated.

She did as he said, staring straight ahead at the dumpster lined with empty cans and cola bottles - her hips pushed out and knees shifted shoulder-width apart. The gun appeared to sweat in the sun around her white grip. Too tight and her posture too stiff, but Charon conceded that having her start at the beginning, like a child, was enough for now.

“You should have just left me,” she whispered, shooting the gun just as he was about to snap. The abrupt sound of the shot made his shoulders shake, but she didn’t notice… too busy staring at the intact can. 

“I’ll never be as good as before you know,” her voice was devoid of the self-pity he had come to expect, but the sureness of her words were unpleasant to him. For a moment he was unsure of how to respond, but she made a sad little smile to the distance so he grumbled, “You weren’t that great then either.”

He backed the right horse it seemed because she turned to him with dust-covered cheeks and a wry smile. At that moment he saw her freshly for the first time in months, with her tear-stained cheeks and moist eyes all the silent thanks he needed.

Her smile fell soon enough though.

It felt like she jabbed him in the chest when she lifted her stump to rub at the spot where the gun had rested, between free breasts bouncing under a faded black shirt - his shirt. They’d kept to wrapping it in an old flower printed scarf. This looked ridiculous, but she seemed to enjoy it more than her bare wrist. He had asked what her point was once and she’d blabbered about how it ached like a fire ant bite when she brushed it bare against any surface but the scarf. Charon knew she was just embarrassed by it.

Hell, he had thoughts of leaving for the Commonwealth at times that first week, bring her back a robotic hand just to stop her endless tears of self-pity and deprecation. It was painful to see her so wrought over a hand. She still had him. What else could she have needed he’d thought, unable to understand that sometimes, things had nothing to do with him. That she’d lost a part of her and it was proper of her to mourn it… still…

“Do you still feel your fingers?”

Momentarily she looked shocked at his question, then he saw the muscles flex in her forearm as if she were flexing fingers that didn’t exist anymore, “Yea… it feels like they’re on fire right now.”

“I can get you some ice.”

“You know,” she turned, holstering her little 9mm, “You’re more of a smart ass than I thought you’d be,” but it was said with a smile on her face so he managed a smirk of his own for her.

“If I were you, a helpless ghoul bound by the whims of a one-handed simpleton, I’d be careful with that tongue,” her finger poked him gently in the chest, “I might just have a better use for it now that all I have is the left hand to keep me warm at night.” 

She left him there in the gusting sand, out of breath and a simmering rage in his gut… or something like it. It wasn’t until he began to follow her that he’d realized his mouth had been gaping open like a fucking fish. Perhaps he preferred the crying girl over the cocksure one she’d slipped into once again.

The tears in her eyes never gave him any issues walking, not as she did just now...


	6. Rain

If there was one thing he could remember from the past; from when he was still part of order and not chaos, was how his Commander said the only thing more certain than the potential man had for war, was the lust he'd always have for a good woman. Charon hadn't known any good women, or at least, he couldn't recall knowing any. But there was always potential lingering… always… and what he'd just seen in his cracked binoculars may very well have been a good woman.

It'd been a while since his heart had stuttered so hard or time had seemed so slim. A part of him, even now, knew he'd never have risked his life for a man had he been in the same situation. Old world morals were still ingrained in him: serve your country, follow orders, and protect the weak.

Dust and rubble lifted behind him as he skids down the slope of the cliff, forcing a plume of fine yellow clouds. In the distance he saw the woman's rifle discharge – the crack of sound following a short second later. The shot hit too, but raiders – like rabid dogs – followed in packs, and one less wouldn't dissuade them any when there were three more of them, all as uncaring and merciless as the next.

The beating heat of the sun ran hot on his shoulders and hard sun spots blinded his eyes off the dilapidated cars from where the raiders had sprung into action, but if he could do one good thing...then that would mean something. A man, after all (ghoul or not), had to find meaning every now and then, and saving a woman from peril was about as good as it got.

A feral scream punctuated the abyss as a raider threw a fist, missing but throwing the woman into the excited arms of a strung-out teenager; riddled with filth crusted wrinkles to rival any weathered man. The young raider cackled, tossed her to the next barrel of disease who flung her to the ground where she scrambled in the dirt like a fearful animal. One of them shot at the ground with tweaked carelessness – the bullet plugging into the dirt over her shoulder like a yellow geyser. Her short sound of fear bounded off the wind as she went rigid in her attempt to get away, staring at the dirty hole the bullet had dug.

Raiders never did anything mercifully… or short. 

Charon would have plenty of time to sneak up on them in the end… but witnessing the torture and the rape no doubt about to unfold didn't sit well with him at all. 

He stepped carefully around the cluster of mutant sized rocks, keeping a quick check on the helpless woman as she was kicked on her back, all of the men laughing as it was done. The ripe smell of burning rubber and stale piss grew the closer Charon crept. Shotgun eased down at his thigh, he watched for an opportunity to present itself.

One of the raiders sank to his knees, grinning wide with rotten teeth.

"Think she pissed 'erself?" the one on the ground jested.

"Don't bother me none..." another drawled with speech near bordering on animal sounds, "what? - you afraid of a little smell, ass fucker?"

Two of them laughed hard at the expense of the other, but it didn't seem to bother the other much, in fact, it merely made him grin further. "Maybe she'd like a taste of a good ride. Hey, darlin', what say you huh?"

The woman seemed momentarily paralyzed with fear. 

Charon caught her eyes dart to her fallen gun, halfway between him, hidden between two shredded cars, and her. The adrenaline-fueled gaze lifted a second from her gun, before returning and immediately finding him squatted across from her in the sun-drenched shadows. For a brief second her eyes widened and then immediately narrowed as if they weren't where they really were – as if they were in a bar, and he'd ordered the last beer, putting it to his lips as she glared at him for enjoying what she surely did not.

"I like the way this broad thinks. Keeps quiet like a good bitch ou'tta..."

Suddenly she rolled on her back; eyes flashing to the raiders, snarling with fists up at her chest in a final act of defiance. A demeaning punch was issued to her stomach, just as she swung to defend herself – her own jab missed by a pathetic amount, leaving her to choke and curl on her side when another kick struck her in the back. Again they kicked and that tight mouth she'd formed opened with a spit covered yelp.

When two out of the three raiders knelt down with plain intent at the girl’s curled body, Charon felt that surge of adrenaline race up his spine. If there was any time to act it was now. His knees snapped straight, forcing the sun in the cracks of his face as he lifted his shotgun, gave it a rough pump and shot a small explosion of buck into the one standing the closest. 

Blood dusted the air, and with the sudden distraction and a snarl, he kicked the lonely rifle to the rightful owner, still curled and only now growing aware of what was happening.

She was an interesting woman, Charon realized.

A toothless raider turned, pulling upon a pistol latched tight in his belt, but Charon merely gave him a heavy smack on the jaw, watching him grunt and slam to the ground in a bloom of dust. He would have done the same to the other bastard, but on the ground by his feet – with a fierce, hateful gleam on her face – was the girl with her rifle in hand, jammed straight into the gut of her victim.

The shot from her rifle rang and Charon's eyes lowered with amusement, pumping his shotgun one more time to nonchalantly put down the last one on the ground – the one that no longer had to worry about that painful broken jaw Charon had given him…

A disgusted sound came from the woman, whose kill landed with a dead smack right beside her; rotten mouth open and crusty eyes wide beside her. He nearly gave a grin when she managed to toss the sod off her before the raider soiled himself.

It was nearly laughable how her reaction resembled a small girl inspecting a dead animal because that's all they really were in the end...animals.

\------------------------------------

"You always like this around women? - or does the swearing bother you?" She queried before popping two mentats in her mouth, chewing them quickly. The calm came on as she let the bitter drug rest on her tongue. Normally it was dangerous when alone, but the ghoul shuffling before her seemed even more capable than herself. There was a sense of safety as odd as that sounded out here.

She watched him look her over with a nearly clinical eye; one steeped with mistrust and the rest reeking of apathy as that sand bruised shotgun rested downward in one of his ghoulified hands. He looked unlike any savior she'd had over the years – though saviors were few and far between, they normally didn't look as unhappy to have saved her as this one did, or for that matter so indifferent. The very fact that he was a behemoth of a ghoul didn't deter her nearly as much as his expression did.

"You don't come across others often do you?" she asked with genuine curiosity. Despite fearing an attack from every direction, it was rare to bump into anyone, especially one that was not only willing to point a gun away from her but then points it at her enemies.

"No," was all he said before taking a deep inhale; his chest expanding to make him look even larger than before, and then he turned...walking away.

"Don't you want to ask why?" she added with a smile that only could be given when she felt once again alive and less close to death than a moment ago. 

Endorphins were a thing to be praised indeed.

He kept walking, stopping only to pluck up expended cartridges. "There no 'why's' out here, kid," he groused as if she were a dumbass.

She nearly smirked, but her lower lip cracked dryly in her attempt, forcing a wince between her eyes instead. A lick of the lips didn't even solve it when her mouth felt just as dry. The ghoul tossed up an unspent bullet and cupped it mid-air in a tight, mammoth-sized fist. She didn't have much of an issue with his kind, though the stories she'd heard unnerved her – it was more that, despite his unexpected rescue, she found herself perturbed by his attitude.

Instead of letting him be as her survival instincts suggested, which would be a threat, a good deed always begot a good deed in her book, so she saddled towards him, plucking up a shotgun shell before he did and capping it with a minor tilt to her lips. He looked just as annoyed suddenly.

"Found a map that led me here. The Brotherhood 'supposedly' has a bunker in the garage stocked with supplies… but the," she swallowed disdainfully, "raiders were using this place as a convenient ambush site."

She had his attention by the look of his fervent eye contact, but that annoyance was still there as he looked at her. For some reason his stare made her feel childish and vaguely ridiculous at her explanation. Though if what she'd heard about ghouls was true, then she was but a child in his eyes no matter if she was twice her age.

"This an offer?" He asked her as if she were pulling some trick on him, and she'd have been lying if the idea of clocking him on the back of the head when he followed her in hadn't crossed her mind. To say his leather armor would have been big on her was an understatement, but better that than the shit she was wearing now, and that gun was nearly as impressive as his stature. Anyone else and she'd have done such a thing, but she wasn't a large as she sometimes thought she was. He'd fuck her day up if she crossed him…

"I'd like to think of it more like a reward," she muttered while squinting as he moved to let the sun in her eyes.

"If I'd done this for the reward you'd have been better off with those raiders raping you."

His callous threat dug like a parasite in her belly, so deep since it was so true. With timing and luck on her side, she could have fought off the tweaking raiders, but a sober, huge ghoul proved about as dangerous as a deathclaw she reckoned. If he'd wanted to pluck her up like a child did a treat he would have had little trouble.

"Then let's call it me being grateful?" she tried with – she thought – a hopeful expression.

Silence stretched longer than she thought, her lip curling slightly at his belittling look. She couldn't understand how or why he made her feel so fucking green, but it was ruining her post-survival mood.

"Very well," he said finally, after what felt like a minute.

"Thank god for that...talking to you is like pulling teeth," she mimicked his tone insultingly; smirking soon after she turned around while he growled at her. Despite his mood, falling into a verbal sparring match with him was becoming a rather enjoyable endeavor.

\------------------------------------

If he was being honest, he was slightly enthralled that this woman would offer him anything, let alone spoils. He would have been content with thanks, but she was surprising to say the least. There was that nagging feeling that this was a ruse to catch him off guard; to take what he had and even kill him for it.

He'd agreed for some reason, but that reason didn't seem good enough even while he followed her into the oddly cool market. Bits of dust and crumbling paint fell from the ceiling gradually, while skinny projectiles of light filtered in from minuscule holes dotting the decaying walls. Immediately he surveyed the area, counted the boarded windows, the three passageways leading into darkness and the many possible weapons. 

The shelves were mostly barren, but the stray can of vegetables and packaged cereal looked promising enough.

"Keep yourself at a distance, will ya?" she groused, eyeing him cryptically from the counter where she was busy emptying the cash register.

"Same to you, smoothskin," he bit back, putting a hand on the hilt of his combat knife – it was reassuring when her eyes would stray from counting the bills to watch him as he moved to survey the area. 

Nothing so far looked worth the weight to carry. He'd eat his fill of the canned goods, but he wouldn't bother taking any with him. He'd hunt his food later when the hunger finally crept back on him. Naturally, he didn't have to eat often. One big meal every other day and he managed just fine.

"I think I'm safe to assume the goods are in a basement, bunker...whatever. It looks like a cellar key..." she mumbled, singling out an elongated key on a heavy-looking wheel of differing keys. There must have been over fifty. The smoothskin got around.

"Lead the way then," he said with the nudge of his head to the back corridors. He wasn't about to trust her at his back.

"You stay back," she ordered, sizing him up again; more hostile than she'd been outside. It seemed the closed quarters made her nervous for some reason, more nervous than others would be. "If I hear you creeping too close-"

"Lead the way," he repeated; not caring about her concern. She had nothing to worry about as long as she kept her hands to herself. He wasn't about to harm a woman he'd just saved, and she was naïve if she thought otherwise.

Down a short crop of stone stairs was indeed a heavy door, and her key worked as she'd said. Musky odor of long rotten meat, mold and tepid water assailed his senses. It was cold as well, making what skin he had left tighten and his muscle twitch. He hated the cold. Alaska had proven that a dozen times over.

As he checked the area, scrutinized the floor for traps and gave her another cryptic look, she started mumbling, "... should be a safe… a cabinet… where the living hell..." He tuned her out when his foot landed on a reasonably intact magazine – the edges frayed but the cover photo visual. Watching her search the area, he picked it up with one hand still on his gun. A housewife looked back at him, all smiles with white teeth and a bobbed hair cut. 'How to save by shopping savvy!' it read. It'd been a long time since he was rudely reminded of the past and honestly, he wasn't sure what to feel at the time-tainted memories. Was this nostalgia? - did he even know about this materialistic world at any time in his life? No, he realized. There was never shopping, a wife or even smiles.

"Found it!"

Charon dropped the magazine – a cloud of dust flying up from its impact with the filthy ground. The girl was trying to move a thick sheet of wire fencing. Old planks were further covering what he guessed was a gun cabinet.

"Out of the way. I'll do it," he said, still enjoying his freedom to give orders instead of taking them. The power was as addictive as a drug, and as she backed away to let him lift the rubble out of the way, he couldn't help but feel a certain wave of euphoria. To be the master of his own actions was better than any feeling he'd experience in life, better even than killing.

"-look easy."

The fence toppled to the floor as did the planks – her small voice even smaller against the sound. 

"What?" He asked. 

"I said you make it look easy..." she seemed to bite with her words, "It's called a fucking compliment. Most people like 'em."

He merely grunted – the compliment as she called it wouldn't soften him to her womanly wiles if that was her goal. Saving her was a moral judgment, and aside from the goods she wished to share with him, he cared little for whatever came out of her mouth.

"Are ghouls always this shitty for company, or do you just like making them all look bad?"

It was a taunt he could tell; one he ignored as she fit him with an odd, appraising look before turning her back to him for the sight of the cabinet. The jingle of her keys echoed near-painfully in the stone basement, but when the lock unlatched and she turned back to him grinning he couldn't help but notice how similar she looked to the woman on that forgotten magazine cover. White teeth, nearly blemish-free skin, and eyes that didn't look red-worn or doped were only a few of the features he suddenly took note of. The fuller figure she made when she twisted her waist was also uncommon – it may have been before the war that he'd a woman look so…

"The fuck are you looking at?"

He rose his eyes from her figure to a thin frown and narrowed eyes aimed right at him. 

"Which Vault was it you crawled out of?" He was even more curious about her now. Sure she looked roughened up from life out here, and her demeanor spoke of acclimation to her newfound world, but she was the cleanest looking woman he'd had the rarity to see, and all it took was a comparison from the past to notice.

"You're perceptive aren't you?" He couldn't tell if she meant to mock him or not.

"One O' One. Just a half-mile from Megaton. Don't think for a second they'd let you or anyone else in for that matter though."

She swung the cabinet open, banging it back with a shivering smack of rusted metal. Her body hid whatever was inside and her silence told him it was either a grand haul of goods or a disappointment. Too long she was quiet and then without warning, she gave the inside a rough kick, screaming with a sort of frustration that sounded like it stemmed more from betrayal than deception. Charon knew then that she was a hostile and not a woman eager to share her supposed trophy of supplies. Her eyes told him she was a dangerous woman at this moment.

\------------------------------------

Those rat finks had lied to her. They openly told her the supposed coordinates to this place; a place that had just happen to run through cannibal country and a raider hijack post. Near digestion, rad poisoning, and near-rape were all suffered through with a stiff lip because the whole point was to stock up on the mass of supposed armaments. And this! - this is what she was looking at now. One, split-wooded, hunting rifle looking back at her, leaning into a corner as if it also knew what a sorry sight it looked. It didn't even matter that she could at least repair her own gun with it.

Past the red rage, she heard the ghoul behind her snort derisively, at least that's what her brain processed. He may have been simply breathing for all her rational mind knew, but that part wasn't thinking now. She was angry… and the nasty thought that she'd been set up crawled like poison through her veins.

When she turned to glare past her shoulder at the hulking man of rotten flesh, she felt a rush of spite work its way through her. The remembrance that he'd saved her, and had done so without seeking any reward, pleasure or 'other' was forgotten as he gave her a glare right back.

With the few bullets, she had left she wouldn't make it back to Megaton at this rate, and running into trouble was as guaranteed as the sun would be setting in the next few hours. She needed ammo, and the first idea that came across her mind was to take his.

As if he saw that very thought, she flinched as he lifted his shotgun to her; a casual move but not one to be taken lightly.

"You gonna shoot your damsel now?" she spat with fresh rage still building. She'd never been so thoroughly fucked before, and the memory of that scribe and his nasty smile only made her growl like a rabid dog. The only other thing the Brotherhood could expect from her now was a fat man aimed at their training yard.

The ghoul was quiet, only staring with those milky eyes that before would have unnerved her. If anything the constant eye contact was thinning her desire to act out in a stupid manner; a stupid violent manner that would get her no more than a shot of buck in the gut.

With no small sense of reluctance, she swallowed the urge to verbally berate him and cautiously rose both her hands in the universal sign of concordance. Her last mistake in life wouldn't be to fuck with a man of his size, or with a shotgun of that caliber, ghoul or not.

"No threat. I promise..." Inwardly she grimaced at the deflation in her voice. She was acting childish for the first time in years.

"If it's ammo you need, I have rounds for that hunting rifle… to trade only."

Despite his defensive tone and her still ripe ire, she rose an eyebrow at him. His offer surprised her, just as his passiveness after he saved her had at first. This whole time she'd been traversing the wasteland, she'd yet to come across anyone with his certain...moral integrity. It reminded her of the war heroes she read about in the vault, way back when.

"Yeah..." she muttered finally, "that, that would be alright." No one really said thank you out here, since no one did anything that was in need of a thank you, so she almost forgot that's what you did when someone helped you out. She couldn't even remember if she'd said it after he'd ruined those raider’s chances for a free fuck and meal.

With his gun still trained in her direction, and her palms still raised, he slung a short, near-empty looking pack off one shoulder where it sank to the ground in a thin and rather sad looking way. A sudden well of gratitude replaced much of the leftover anger as she lowered her hands to her sides, still making sure she appeared the submissive in this situation.

"I don't have much in the way to trade… could provide a handful of jet if that's your thing?" 

If she was lucky he liked the stuff much more than she did, but a stiff, one-shake of his head said otherwise. He still gestured for her to come close while simultaneously lowering his shotgun – a hand going into his pack to fish out the ammo. With care, she knelt close enough and watched his shredded looking fingers put differing ammunition into piles.

He seemed to have over a dozen .32 rounds but she shifted uncomfortably, knowing how little she had to trade back. The high after the raiders, the anger after seeing what she'd trekked all this way for – it was all gone and a morose, nearly sheepish mood had taken over her. The mentats earlier must have kept her in check enough that she hadn't done something like attacking him, but now they were making her more passive and muted than she normally was. She even thought fleetingly of offering him something more intimate for the ammunition, but she'd never offered such a thing before, and wouldn't even now.

She frowned as he ignored her looks. Something about him reminded her of one of those protectrons from RobCo. Every move he made was oddly synthetic and calculated. Thinking back he'd exhibited the same movements as he was now, but that time she was distracted by highs and lows of serotonin. Now she could think rationally enough. Was he some ghoulish android like Harkness? It seemed counter-productive to make an android appear ghoulified unless he was to blend in with other ghouls…

She'd known of a place in DC that held a community of ghouls, but the name of the place escaped her since going had never appealed to her before. Then again, DC in general never appealed to her…

"What do you want for them?" she asked suddenly, pushing folly thoughts away for the current dilemma at hand. Her own pack, though fuller, contained an assortment of useless things a ghoul of his caliber wouldn't seem to be interested in. Still, she flung it off her shoulders – her rifle tapping to the floor as well in her clumsy haste.

"...shit," she cursed, setting the rifle close before unbuckling her pack.

"Just take them. We won't make this into a problem."

Uncertain as to what he was getting at she didn't respond, merely gave him another searching look like she'd give any unpinned stranger. Everything he did was… unlike anything she'd come to accept about the outside world and it wasn't right. No one did things for nothing.

"Don't play games with me. Just tell me what it is you need..." before she could list off the goods she had she caught his gaze drop for just a moment; a moment so slim she almost thought it'd been a hallucination, but she'd seen it all right. The ghoul had just checked her out...and the normal disgust didn't come as it did when it usually happened – not that it happened much. It was a normal routine to appear as much a man as possible at a distance.

An awkward silence followed as he caught her gaze. She saw that he knew she'd known what the look had been, but his expression never wavered from that mask of nothing. She had to admit, he was good at the poker face.

With a silent swallow, she pried the opening of her pack open and delved a hand inside "...I've got colas, scrap parts...jet, but you don't want that, smokes, chips..."

"I'll take the cigarettes."

Without thinking she tossed them at him, but with an envious reflex she saw him catch them just above his shoulder – the action smooth and simple looking when she was certain it wouldn't have been if she'd done it.

"...I can pay you in caps if that's wh-"

"I don't use them. Traders avoid ghouls if you're not aware by now. These will be fine, smoothskin."

A pack of smokes for forty caps worth of ammunition seemed more akin to robbery than trade, but she wouldn't complain, not when she'd thought of ways to incapacitate him to grab his shotgun just minutes earlier.

"...Thanks, for everything by the way."

She'd watched him leave then, without even a nod of acknowledgment and she'd gone on her way as well. Live another day to fight for another one tomorrow, she thought with a grim smile as the large silhouette of him against the evening sun faded. Maybe there were a few good souls out here after all.

\------------------------------------

Radiation rain had proved to make him more groggy than it had energetic. It'd been a decade since the last time he'd felt it on his face, and he knew that standing in it more than an hour was perhaps a bit frivolous for him. The calm warmth had eventually lead to lethargic euphoria. Nothing remotely pleasurable had touched his senses in over an endless fifty years, but it wasn't smart to have stayed outside so long.

A house, perched on a sloping hill of dying but resilient grass stood in the canopy of brown rain. A nearly buried cemetery grew noticeable the closer he got, and a stake shooting for the sky – a thing he was certain had once been a cross – perched on the top of the roof. A church.

He licked at the rain running down his mouth and smirked darkly at the idea of finding solace in the monument of Christendom. Keeping eyes scanning for animals turned crazed by the rain, he surveyed the yard for mines. The exterior was in good shape. A foundation made of brick covered in rotten wood proved why it had survived so long.

A squirrel bounded from a hole under the step way as he approached; skirting across his boots with erratic panic before fading into the distance of more incoming rain. The haze to the east proved there was more storm to come. Unlike rain before the war, this stuff wasn't going to nourish a damn thing…

With the shotgun steady at the hip, a finger on the trigger and a shake of his head to clear the growing fog at the front of his brain, he entered as silently as a man his size could afford. Even before his condition was brought upon him, both before the war and after, he'd always been commended for his ability to go unnoticed. A commander had referred to him as a snake – no matter how big, they struck from seemingly nowhere.

Charon realized that silence wasn't going to be a problem. A heavy, sharp ring of fire ignited in both his ears – the force of displaced air caressing the side of his neck as a bullet missed by no more than an inch.  
It was a trap.

The rope he triggered was laying at his shoulder from the trim of the door and in the darkness lay a rigged rifle with one shot.

A flutter of footsteps on the second floor caught his attention, and just as the shrouded figure reached the banister, a gun lifted at him against a shoulder, he had done the same. He was at a disadvantage though, even a well-placed shot would pepper the stranger… not kill as a bullet from whatever long-ranged gun was aimed down at him.

"Turn around. Walk out and shut the door behind you." Lo and behold he knew that voice and the recent, burdening memory of the girl crept back up as if he'd turned his back on her just yesterday. Against better judgment, he lowered his shotgun enough that she'd have had time to shoot him before he'd even be able to aim at her.

"Rain might kill you, but I 'will' if you don't get the fuck out!" That calm, almost gentle tone had turned threatening, but he wasn't intimidated, whether from the radiation or her, in general, he wasn't certain.

"Nice to see you too, kid."

The silhouette waivered a second before tensing back into the 'shoot first' position. She may not remember him from his voice alone – it had been said ghouls sounded alike in most respects. But something told him she knew exactly who he was.

"Was that you that's been following me then? Figured you'd corner me in when the rain came in?"

A distant, scratchy chuckle rode up his throat. It didn't even sound like him when it came out of his mouth, but something about the coincidence, the situation, and her hostile reaction was amusing. Her dark figure – surrounded by gray rods of light peeking through a boarded-up window – swayed once more before the gun was hoisted and a slur came out of her mouth.

Aside from being insulted he lowered his gun to the floor and kicked the door behind him with one heavy foot. The darkness swallowed up what little light the open door had let in, and within a few seconds a green block of light lit up to his right.

"Coincidence then?" she asked as he watched her descend the curved stairs. The pip-boy – he now realized – was new. He'd have remembered seeing that when he'd first saw her.

Only when she was close enough to expose his face with the green hue did he nod, dropping the grin as she frowned. There were still streaks of rain on her face, and her clothes were stuck to her; clothes that were meant to be worn under armor and not seen by anyone else out there. A man he was after all, and looking at her was hard to avoid. It was just a glimpse of an old wet top and faded blue shorts, all cotton and all still very damp. Stuffed between a plump hip and those shorts was, however, a little .32 pistol. Her gun may have been holstered over a shoulder, but one quick reach and she could have shot him even before he had a mind to attack her.

"I wouldn't have thought ghouls would mind being out in the rain. But..." she gave him an amusing smirk,"... maybe you guys get colds too, huh?"

"The last thing a ghoul wants is to turn feral. Overexposure to radiation can do that," he said, avoiding the real reason which was more embarrassing than it was anything else. Pleasure wasn't something he knew how to ignore – it wasn't like pain and it wasn't...normal. The effects of it were something he didn't need, alone or otherwise.

"So that's where those things come from..." she didn't seem to be asking as much as she was musing about the realization, so he kept quiet and slowly – making sure she saw him – pulled out a light. A flick and orange light bobbed between them, more flattering than the green.

She stared up at him, an odd and saturated look on her face. The barest of smiles curled her lips and he had to admit she was beautiful, even smelling of wet dog as she did.

A heavy breath expanded her chest, but his gaze stayed glued to her face as she let out a shaky sigh, "There's a fire in the backroom, follow me." And he obeyed while trying to light a wet cigarette.

\------------------------------------

Her skin felt itchy around him she realized, at first she thought it was the radiation, but the first thing she'd done – like any sensible human being – was tap into a vein and subject herself to the burn and nausea of a radaway packet. They weren't pleasant, but the headaches and shakes from too much radiation had proved once that she never wanted to feel like that again and it'd taken her a long while to sprint for this place.

There was still the matter of who the hell it was that had been following her, and if it really had been him or not, but unless he was some sadistic stalker – an idea that didn't hold much merit – then it was just a strange coincidence he was here.

"So...out of curiosity..." she turned to look at him staring, emotionless, down at her, "...you're not feeling like eating me are you? I mean...since you were out in the rain and all..."

He grunted, but the light from the red ember tip of his smoke showed a small twitch to the corner of his mouth. She smirked herself, shrugging her shoulders.

He started a fire from the wood planks she'd broke herself a few minutes before he set off her trap. It would have been a shame if it'd gotten him she realized, feeling comfortable with the unexpected company he gave just by his presence. The ghoul had saved her after all. He was the closest thing to a friend she had out here – the realization almost upset her.

"I'll go reset the trap," he said in that low gravel-like voice before leaving her to bring the fire up to ablaze. 

He was submerged in darkness again and the fire that started crackling was the only sound. Its heat grew and with a sigh she sat down in her wet clothes, poking the charring wood with another skinny shard. 

What sun had been hidden behind the rain clouds was almost gone by the time he arrived, and the cold was seeping into her bones even with the fire helping to dry and warm her.

A snap in the other room signaled he'd rearmed her trap, and as expected he returned; a pack, fuller than it'd been when she'd last saw it, gripped in hand.

"Wouldn't be too hopeful to assume you've got some food in there?" she asked with a forced air of ease. In truth, she was still rattled by the radiation and the rain. Books had told her about precipitation, but she couldn't enjoy it like she'd thought she would have when it was just a fantasy. Out here everything was dangerous, even the rain that she'd so craved to see – it was just like the sun. She could still remember how it'd blinded her eyes and burned her skin before she realized how not-so-magical it really was.

Instead of saying anything she watched him dig out three cans of goods. In the firelight, she read them: pineapple, pork an’ beans, and peeled tomatoes.

"What the fuck is a pineapple?"

"A fruit," he said bluntly, taking the can in her hand and stabbing it with a sharp, slim knife. He did it with all the cans; splaying their jagged lids over to expose the innards. The whole while he was as silent as if she were alone again.

"I have some cakes if you're interested..." she trailed off and watched as he shoved the can of beans and pork beside the fire, following soon with the tomatoes, "... could be like a real meal for once, dessert included." 

She rested her chin in a hand, pressing her thighs to her chest and gave him a quick look. His gaze was in the fire and he didn't say anything. He was avoiding her actually she realized, which in truth was fine. She didn't care for any stares while she'd hung up her armor to dry over the sputtering radiator behind them; blowing cold air that smelt of mildew.

Above them, the rain poured hard on the roof, but it's old stone held steady enough against the onslaught.

She was about to ask him about the pineapples again but something loud, unearthly and heart-pounding, exploded all around them. Confounded with a sudden, terrible fear she bolted up, scrambled along the floor for her gun and whipped it around on shaky knees...all the while she started to notice how the ghoul was as calm and still as he'd been before the noise, looking at her with eyes narrowed and amused.

"What the fuck..." she whispered – the fear still upon her and the confusion as to why he wasn't moving turned to anger, "Why are you just standing there?! - we need to-"

"It's thunder. It's normal with the rain..." and that was all he said before shoving the cans of food out of the fire with the tip of his boot.

Her heart pounded as it'd never done before; so hard she felt like gagging, but his calm exterior and second amused look said he wasn't lying – it was normal...it had to be. Only when her heart slowed did she rest her gun back down, and take a deep, shallow breath. 

This world still had surprises, even after she'd thought she'd seen it all. The whole thought had been naïve, but it was times like this she realized she wasn't as hardened as she wished she was.

"The food is ready."

She heard him talk, but a burning embarrassment kept her from acknowledging him yet. The times he'd seen her she'd made a point to make sure nothing showcased how ignorant she truly was. Perhaps book smart, but smart to this world even after the years living in it she wasn't. She just had to wallow in her own shame for a moment and then she'd be fine…

"Vault Dwellers aren't known to last as long as you have, smoothskin. Being scared proves you're smart. It's the wrongly self-confident and fearless that get themselves killed. Don't be ashamed."

She still couldn't meet his eyes, but she crawled back beside him, crossing her legs as he pulled out a spoon and a fork missing one tooth. It was wrong, but she was glad they'd run into each other again as the tension slowly left her body. The heat, the albeit rancid smell of the food, and his words gave her a sense of comfort she could still recall feeling in the vault.

"You said you had cakes?" he asked in a tone almost hopeful, and finally she smirked.

"You're damn right I did. Never even opened," a grin stretched her lips as she leaned back to pull out the box.

They ate in a quiet, peaceful heat. She felt dry and full by the time they were done, and she even tried the sour yellow triangles of pineapple. It tingled on her tongue, but she decided they were good for the fabled fruit she'd heard about.

She watched the strange display of the ghoul eating one of the half sticky, half stale cakes. It was amusing, to say the least, but she kept the look off her face as she ate her own. All the while the rain turned directions, waned and then pelted the church harder.

"So… does the rain normally last long?

"After the bombs, rains would come every few years. They could last days or hours."

"Surely the rain shouldn't hold so much radiation. I mean… two centuries and it should have burned off. It isn't like that stuff doesn't ever get broken down. Nothing lasts forever..."

"You'd be surprised," was all he said.

\------------------------------------

Despite her character the first time he'd met her, she seemed more or less relaxed in his presence now. 

Even after the bolt of thunder sent her halfway across the room she laid out a pallet near the fire, staring into it without the usual worry anyone else would have exhibited had there been a seven-foot ghoul behind them.

Against the harsh light and shadow and of the fire, he could see the indent of her spine through the opening between shirt and shorts. She was thinner than the last time, but the hips were just as full. He stared; part in curiosity and part in appreciation. Reassuring himself he wasn't leering he let his eyes roam while taking to both his elbows with a grunt. The warmth was good with the wet rain still trying to dry between his skin and the leather. If he'd been alone he'd have taken it off, but with her acting much less the cautious adversary he didn't want to ruin whatever comfortable atmosphere had developed. Finding anyone that wouldn't put a gun to his face was worth sparing them the sight of his tattered remains.

"So, what do I call you?"

Charon paused in his leisurely mapping of her back to watch the back of her head as it curled further into her mat. This was an opportunity to reclaim his old name…

When he didn't answer her, he watched her roll to look back at him; eyes filled with yellow light from the fire behind her. Her expression was darkened, but he looked regardless.

"Charon." He wasn't yet ready to remember anything before the bombs. Not yet. For now, he was who he was, minus the contract. First and foremost, he was a killer, a survivor and a ghoul and the name they'd used for him was fine then, and it would be fine now.

"That's an interesting pronunciation." she mused, rolling back over to face the flames.

"It is. It is spelled with a ‘C’."

“Hmm… like the Ferryman…”

She must have fallen asleep minutes after that. Her breathing was shallow and even; each rise and fall of her ribs he could count to the next inhale perfectly. 

The radiation had wired him up, and though his body was worn and heavy, his mind was sharp and more than awake. Sleep wouldn't come easy…

The rain fell like it was molten. Faint sounds of hissing lay in the background of the heavy pattering storm. Just thinking about the heady, buzzing sensation of the radiation filled him with a calm, almost high feeling. It had felt good, better than anything had in a long while...good enough to affect his body in a way that was both a relief and a burden at the same time. The last time he'd had an erection might have been over two decades ago. The one earlier was both a blessing and a curse.

Again his eyes fell to the girl and her partially exposed back. The skin showing was smooth and clean looking. The rain must have washed away most of the dirt. She'd looked filthier the last time, though perhaps his newly awakened desires were to blame for making her look more appealing than she was.

The endless thinking and musing must have put him into an unexpected sleep, because suddenly he was outside and there was no rain, though he could hear it plain as anything else. She was there with him, but where she stood, far enough that he couldn't see her expression, it was raining and lightening. Her body was soaked and the clothes were as thin as paper and as see-through as glass. He found himself growing closer, though his legs weren't moving. She was standing still, unabashed at her near-naked body and when he touched her she burned him.

His hand was on fire when she said his name.

"Charon."

For so long his employers had mispronounced his name as another long-standing joke, but she said it as it was meant to be said and the way she said it…

He felt a hand on his chest and again the touch lit him on fire.

"Charon..."

In an instant he was awake, and the dream was gone. 

Her hot touch, translucent clothes and the rain draping them both was gone to be replaced by a human and very real touch on his shoulder. There were no thought or memories of where he was or who he was within that moment as he snatched up the hand, tossing the body belonging to that hand under him on the floor.

A strangled sound came out of her mouth, but he'd already trapped her wrist behind her back and pinned her by the neck; his hips digging into her thighs.

"... get off me!" she growled fearfully through his grip around her neck.

Immediately he was off her, on his knees looking down as she scrambled to get out from under him. A nasty look adorned her face and with a hand on her neck she groaned in discomfort. There wasn't any way to react but badly...so he growled in a mimic of her but with all the torn timbre of his ruined throat, "Why would you put your hands on me, smoothskin?"

He must not have sounded threatening enough, for she merely gave him an almost pained, mocking laugh before rubbing at a spot on her chest, "You talk in your fucking sleep...thought you were asking me a question but you kept asking it and wouldn't shut up..."

There was a suspicious gleam in her eye then as he stared blankly at her, still feeling her body heat scorched where he'd touched. His body was betraying him as it had in his youth… and she had more than likely felt it.

A shit-eating grin told him she knew something, and that something he probably didn't want her to have known…

"So… ghouls work in 'that' way after all, huh? Everyone told me it fell off after… well… you know," she sounded less mocking and more curious, but the mockery and the grin were still there all the same. It made him vaguely sick to be dealing with not only something he'd thought he'd been rid of but also the embarrassment that came with anyone being aware of it at all.

"Don't get cocky, kid. The radiation in the rain affects us ghouls differently."

"Oh, I can tell that… hard to miss that..." a short, nearly nervous chuckle left her mouth as she looked off to the side, avoiding his eyes. He'd well and truly fucked up whatever this unhostile truce they had between them… and it was more upsetting than he had thought it'd be.

"You don't have to worry about it," he told her, "or me," he added, unsure if reassuring her was the right idea or not. She had been nearly raped last time he'd seen her. Perhaps it was a concern of hers that a ghoul like him would get ideas while she was more than easy picking here in the church, surrounded by the rain.

"I'm not. I can defend myself..."

Charon stared her down, knowing the tone he'd heard but trying his best to ignore it. He also, with a bite to his inner cheek, ignored the searching look she gave him...and the way it trailed over his body.

"... you know. If you wanted I wouldn't be opposed to-"

"I wouldn't think about it if I were you, kid," he said with a curt tone and set jaw. Opening up that idea would get him nowhere and it would get her everywhere she didn't want to be. The very idea was unthinkable and brash, and he'd rather cut that inkling down as quick as he could. Going decades without his dick making itself noticeable and even longer before he'd entertained a sexual idea being possible, wasn't a good path to accepting flaky offers from smoothskins.

"How the hell do you know what I was talking about?!"

He snorted and got up, grabbing his pack and gun.

"Where do you think you're going?!"

Her stare itched on his chest, but he wasn't going to entertain any more of this. If the issue didn't go away he would take care of it himself in private...upstairs perhaps, which is where he took himself as she demanded he stay.

"Hey!"

Even when the rain had stopped and a dead silence took hold as the fire died slowly, she sat hunched over crossed legs listening for any noise that the ghoul was still there. She'd not heard the door open, but she also hadn't heard his heavy steps climb up the stairs either. It was like he vanished...and she was too conflicted to go look for him. The last thing she'd intended was for him to storm out as if she'd insulted him. Perhaps he thought she was leading him into a nasty joke…

Regardless of the reason, it made her feel… very, very unattractive.

The years out of the vault had made quick work of her disdainful youthful plumpness. The body she'd wished for didn't even come with all the walking and starving, instead, she felt less comfortable in her body… more like a man than a woman at times. There was never a time to flaunt herself, and when the time did come that she felt confident enough to do so… it was better to hide what little she had. 

A ghoul turning her down before she could even wrap her mind around what her mouth was saying was a low blow. Seeking him out just felt like something she'd have done in the vault when Freddy called her names. Did she want more of the same treatment? - No. She fucking didn't.

Once more she felt like a child – the second time in less than six hours.

"Better to just keep my mouth shut… fucking beautiful," she grumbled with no small amount of useless venom. Who wanted to fuck one of those walking corpses anyways? Sure, he didn't smell like Gob had, more like leather and oil than the greasy, sour smell from the enslaved bartender. Charon didn't even look all that terrible… but – feeling slightly ignorant – she wondered if she could catch something from being intimate with a ghoul. A disease or… worse, become a ghoul herself.

As the fire was snubbed out by her gentle, wooden pokes, she realized she didn't need it that bad. And he was just another man after all. None of the men out here had appealed to her yet...not that the ones in the Vault had been anything to brag about. Being turned down by him meant nothing to her…

After twenty-four minutes the rain started back up again, beginning with a soft pattering sound before growing deafening. When another heavy clap of thunder shook the foundation she was ready for it. 

Only a small rash of goosebumps rose on her arms and legs, aside from that she held her ground; teeth clenched tight. A harmless noise wasn't going to scare her, not when there were worse things to fear.

Sleep didn't come even when she willed it. The darkness didn't help since the cold crept in, and the fire was too bright even behind her closed eyes. As much as she didn't want to admit it, being turned down by a ghoul was insulting...and the more she thought about it the more she wished he'd just let her finish her offer.

Thinking about fucking him wasn't so bad, even when she pictured exactly how bad it could be. Considering how tall he was, it would have been a shame if his dick didn't actually work. Up close he was a bit ghastly, but he had all his teeth and that was more than most the people she'd met could rival.

"What a waste..." she grumbled; lying on her belly with her chin on her bent arm, fiddling with the clasp of her pack idly.

Would he be squishy? - or would he be jagged and rough like a scab? Thinking about it made her scrunch her nose. People didn't go around fucking ghouls for a reason, right? But what little she'd known about ghouls had turned out to be wrong...so…

"Kid."

She whipped her head around, seeing the man in question with an electric lantern in one hand and a stern frown set on his face. He took up the whole archway and then some judging by the hunch of his neck into his shoulders.

"What?" she snapped; already turned on her back with her elbows dug into her pallet. The previous ideas inhabiting her mind vanished as she tried her hardest to be disgusted by him. He looked like the walking dead. A zombie from Grognak the Barbarian. 

Rotten… scarred… huge… but ugly… and…

There was the sound of his heavy inhale and a phlegmy exhale before he cleared his throat, "I'd appreciate it if you'd forgive me for..." he seemed at a loss for the right words despite how more relaxed he appeared.

"For being a rude bastard? Sure, I forgive you. Not sure what I was thinking anyhow," she started, thinking at first to be casual about the whole thing, but then he narrowed his eyes at her and she felt spiteful once more, "I mean, really. Even if you guys still had working dicks I doubt you'd have many tak-"

"I am not half a man, smoothskin," he bit so hard she felt her tongue go dead in her mouth.

Those milk-glazed eyes held anything but lifelessness at that moment. She swallowed down another comment, knowing better while her gun was a good two feet away from reach.

She watched him take a long step into the room – the sound of his boots made her stomach clench unpleasantly.

"If I had a mind to I could rape you, kill you and eat you like those raiders had intended," he spoke with little inflection and it made her feel vaguely sick just thinking about it, "but I have no desire to do any of that. You keep running that fucking mouth though, and you might make one of those ideas tempting..."

Between her ribs, her heart thudded hard and her mouth watered enough that she swallowed again almost audibly. She felt scolded, and never before had she wanted to berate anyone so terribly… and yet not. 

Instead of saying anything she normally would, like insult him, belittle him or even vomit any number of curses, she said something else… but something no less stupid.

"If my voice made you want to fuck me you could have just said so… no need to bring up the raping."

His off-blue eyes narrowed immediately, and for a second the gap between his lips let her know he was at least mistily shocked by her statement – it was replaced by a sneer quickly enough though. No one could say a ghouls eyes weren't expressive, not anymore at least, and not to her. She stared into his eyes as a myriad of emotions filtered towards her: confusion, insult, rage, interest, lust, and then disgust was what she was left with. Suddenly her skin started to itch once more.

"Go to sleep, kid. All I want from you is the fire," it sounded like a conviction, not a reassurance for her or for him even, but she kept her mouth shut this time. 

For once she knew better. But that didn't stop her from staring at him all the while as he flicked and stoked the fire back up, breaking the skeleton of an old dresser for more fuel in the corner.

Splinters cracked over his thigh, creating wrist sized logs of wood with apparent ease. The display of strength enamored her now as sure as it had disturbed her before. It reminded her of when he'd lifted that clutter from the gun cabinet the first time she'd met him.

She eyed him again, almost wearily as he sat himself down a good ways away from her, but close enough that the fire highlighted the full front of him.

How long had he lived? - and would continue on living? Radiation couldn't kill him. Mutants avoided ghouls too, she remembered that much. Everything about him was mutated to keep him alive in this new, hostile world. In some way, she envied his ghoulish abilities...though walking around looking like a corpse didn't sound all too pleasant…

Despite ignoring her own appreciation of him and convincing herself how disgusting he really was – to her distaste – she felt arousal coil in between her thighs. Her body betrayed her, and the thought of excusing herself to take care of the problem herself was mulling around in her head more and more with each minute of silence.

Something inside her wished she'd catch him looking as she gave him sideways glances, but he never seemed to look away from the fire.

As time crept on by, and the rain continued to fall as the cold threatened to tear through the warmth brought on by the fire, her ability to hold her own tongue began to vanish, "You prefer men then," she muttered, "Is that it?"

There was silence and as it drug on she accepted that he might have decided ignoring her was his best option. But she stared regardless; skin itching and insides growing heated. Color her a ghoul lover, cause in that moment she would have let him fuck her if he had half a mind to… which, unfortunately, he didn't seem to in even the slightest sense.

Just when she was about to sigh, sneer and fall back on her pallet, he turned his eyes to her.

She couldn't say what it was in his stare, but it made her feel small…

"Since I'm a ghoul, you think I'd jump at the chance to fuck you if I wanted it? Is that how your sniveling vault boys acted around you?" Each question made her innards clench.

"Did they smell you like a bitch in heat and bend you over like one?"

She didn't know what he was comparing her to, but the insult in his voice was enough for her rage to flow. 

He sneered and she rose to her knees with her fists bunched in the hem of her shorts – a deep desire to beat him bubbled up within the pool of her hurt pride. Even if she'd taken a nightly mentat it wouldn't have done any good to calm her down now.

"I was only as-" she started; voice shaking as the last shred of her common sense held her back.

"You were only trying to insult me as I insulted you? - by declining your offer," he snorted at her, "Did that wound your pride a bit too much?" he didn't move an inch at her violent body language. He didn't even seem any less calm than he had been this whole time. Something about that pissed her off way more than his words did. She wasn't a threat to him. He knew it and she knew it.

"Like I said, kid. The radiation was the culprit, not you. Don't look any further into it..."

\------------------------------------

It wasn't the last thing he expected from her, but when she growled and lunged towards him, he was surprised she'd actually forgo logic and attack him with just her small hands and dull teeth. He could strangle her with one hand if he'd wished it, or punch her hard enough to kill her...one hit and she'd be down. Knowing all of this, and knowing she knew as well, confused him for a split second before he reacted just before one of her small fists connected with his cheekbone.

He felt the bones in her wrists clack together, noting she was frailer than he'd assumed, before a swift punch cut up under his chin from her other tight fist. It stunned him, but he caught the next jab in his palm with ease enough that she gave a growl of annoyance.

"You out of your mind?" he asked with nasty humor dripping in his voice.

She jerked in his grip, but he held tight, glaring at her. 

Her body whipped back and forth, twisted and pulled and still he held on, only feeling the slightest burn in his arms as he pulled her in closer, until her fists were risen just above his shoulders at his head. With a lazy motion he bent one leg, pushing a knee against her stomach as he yanked her in just an inch closer. Her huff of indignation landed against his chin, smelling of something sweet and sour…

She was trapped and with a bare smirk, he let her think the worst for a little while longer. Feeling her thudding heartbeat against his knee was exhilarating. The look of barely masked fear, mixed with misplaced rage and bruised pride on her face was addictive. This was the second, maybe third time she'd shown a hot streak. The girl was quick to anger, or perhaps she reacted poorly to embarrassing situations, no matter how small.

"What did you think you were gonna do, smoothskin? Beat me?" he questioned tauntingly. Charon was enjoying this, he realized, as she bared her teeth and gave another yank, which only served to push his knee further under her diaphragm. A gasp of breath proved he'd hit the right spot to shut her up completely. A series of short breaths satisfied him…

With his own terrifying teeth bared he forced her backward, by knee and arms, flat on her back where she curled on one side and gave a weak cough.

Whatever it was that pulled the switch he wasn't sure – whether it was the way her shorts had ridden up the crease of her ass, or how weak she looked and how powerful and in control he felt, he couldn't be sure. But suddenly his body reacted to it all. That sweet smell of her breath, the softness of her wrists, the sight of her barely clad body and that addicting rush of power.

"Fuck..." he hissed, scrambling to his knees, leaving his morals behind him when she began to rise.

"Back off!" she instructed with a shrill bark, stretching an arm out between them that he smacked out of the way as easily as he would a weaken and rotten barricade. He was stronger than her… he could do anything he wanted to her. If he wanted to he could rape her, kill her, eat her… all he had to do was do it. But he wasn't going to kill her, nor would he eat her… maybe taste her… maybe rape her… no, she'd asked for this. He'd fuck her.

Her hair was still a damp mess of stringy curls, but it was so soft in between his fingers and when he pulled the strands into a tight fist she squealed. A tight stab of pleasure ran down his gut at the sound. Charon didn't even pause, despite knowing how wrong it was to get off on how utterly, and completely at his mercy she was. A small part of his mind said he was acting no better than those raiders he'd saved her from.

"Stop! Stop! Sto-!" grabbing the back of her neck and giving it a good squeezed strangled her into momentary silence before her choked cries of 'stop' began anew, albeit softer yet no less desperate.

One tight hand on her neck, pressing the side of her face down in the padding of her pallet, he took the lip of her shorts in hand and jerked them down her thighs. The mantra of 'stops' ceased immediately and were replaced by her heavy breathing. Each rough exhale was stamped with a tiny moan. Whether it was in fear or anticipation he didn't care any longer. She was getting what she'd asked for now.

"Are you starving, kid?" he uttered down beside her exposed ear, feeling the heat of her naked lower half seep through his leathers like an intrusion. She didn't answer, but he didn't expect one anyhow...or want one even. "I'm gonna feed you… right now."

She gave no response.

"Say no..."

"No..." it was barely a word, more like the coo of a dying animal and like a monster he groaned at the effect the noise had on him. She had no one to blame but herself for what came next.

He freed himself from his pants in less time it took for him to pull her shorts down. Just his own touch seared him deep enough to growl. Expelling himself in the darkness earlier didn't seem to do a damn thing for his sanity. And she'd somehow known it…

Her constant fucking jabs and insults. This was her doing and her fault.

The fog in his mind was so thick he barely realized he was thrusting a finger inside her until she gasped and squirmed against his knuckles. Dripping and hot, he drew the slickness over his cock; teeth clenching and hand giving her neck another squeeze. He stared at her exposed rear...rationalizing what he was about to do as his cock pulsed in his hand.

This was wrong…

"Just do it..." she said, as if he were hesitating too long with a knife at her belly. Yet, he was indeed hesitating. In another moment, as quickly as he'd decided to fuck her, he realized he couldn't. Not like this. Like a spell broken, he eased his grip upon her neck before pulling away from her… leaving her on her hands and knees with inner thighs shimmering wet in the fire's light.

Looking away he pulled his stiffness back behind tight leathers and a strapped buckle. A well of nausea swam up the back of his throat but he swallowed it down. Being without control for so long, he was already trying to rationalize why he'd have such a strong urge to dominate her… hurt her.

"Are you kidding me..." he barely heard her say. She was on her rear, shimmying out of her shorts with those heavy breaths still invading the silence. "Fucking. Kidding. Me..."

He glared, sinking down to sit on his heels as a defeated and wholly confused feeling swam over him. She was insane… or maybe he was…

While she lifted that useless little shirt over her head he stared, feeling his tongue swell in his mouth. She crawled to him, over him and let that infuriating mouth slant against his own; tongue sliding over his cracked lip before breaching inside to stroke his own tongue. She had him, as he'd had her earlier, but she didn't have to use physical force, this was something else. Charon felt drugged.

"You're a ghoul..." she drawled against his mouth, as if reminding him, but the declaration didn't stop her from pushing her weight against him, forcing him back on the ground. "... radiation my ass..." and then one of her hands was unlatching and yanking open his pants with a fervor that made his hands finally move. 

Charon grabbed her naked rear, squeezed a hip and pulled on the tip of a breast. Her flesh was pliable in areas and toned in others; soft and firm but every inch of skin was smooth no matter how many scars he felt. A fever struck him, and it was as if he'd been doing this just yesterday. Everything he'd known about women came back while she moaned under his hands.

Her nipple hardened in his mouth when he bent to lap it up. Her moans sent him into a growling fit, with hands scratching up her spine to pull her shoulders back; urging her healthy breasts up for his attack of teeth, tongue and lips.

Each roll and toss of her hips grazed him through his pants, and once he felt the pressure around his cock lesson, and the cool yet heated air touch him, her hands were there to reapplying that suffocating pressure tenfold. Squeezing and rousing him regardless of his uneven texture.

Another moan broke from her throat as he bite a breast, dragging his tongue over the delicate slope to taste the bend of her neck – but she hiked herself up, taking her neck from his mouth so her hips could roll up and over his aching flesh. With an eager, animistic desire he drew her rear in both hands, grabbing wide hips.

"Charon..." she moaned. 

He paused a moment, rumbling as his head swam in its lustful state,"... you fucking liar." 

How she managed to taunt him, with a huffing grin, he couldn't fathom. But the sound of her breathy chuckle made him snarl. With the muscles in his abdomen quivering and her moisture soaking him, he yanked her down, bearing into her in the same instant.

He ignored the nearly comical yelp she gave.

The scorching heat inside of her, the tightness he hadn't expected and the silky touch struck him half dumb; dumb enough that he couldn't do much but tip his head back and groan as she shivered and eased up an inch to sink back down on him. Weak rolls of her hips made his thighs melt and his fingers go numb as they dug deep into the flesh under them.

"Now who's under whose control… mnnh?" a coy smile, broken but beautiful gaze down at him mockingly, "- is it you? Yeah… the big… bad… uuh!"

He gave a growl and drew her hips back and forth over his lap, pulling and pushing and thrusting upwards with each pull, shutting her up while increasing the feeling. She was a stubborn woman...couldn't even get her way without mouthing off. Maybe he should have fucked that, he wondered as a particular thrust made her squeeze around his girth, then decided this might have been worth her taunts.

"I'll fuck you 'till you can't speak for once..." he warned her, his voice more broken than usual even to his own hearing.

A half-moan, half-laugh was his answer. Her hands went to his chest, fumbling with the zipper at his jacket; an annoying grin plastered on her face, "I think I'm the one that's doing the fucking," to prove that point he felt her hips buck faster in his lap, his flesh dragging inside her with greater friction.

He hissed and held in a curse, not wanting to boost her fucking ego any more than it was.

Her slim fingers darted under his exposed shirt – pocked with bullet holes and worn edges – touching the naked muscle and rough skin. "Not so bad… just-" she moaned and shook deliciously above him, "just like your cock..." He didn't know if she was referring to his skin or what, but her motions picked up and a sudden erratic tempo came over her. He wanted more of it, but he wasn't going to be fucked, he was going to fuck.

\------------------------------------

Screw everything anyone had said about ghouls – it was erased from her memory. Every second she grew more enamored by him. The jagged, hard yet slick and soft drag of his flesh inside her own – the rough pawing and kisses and bites that drew her in and out of nervousness that he'd take a chunk out of her like the stories she'd heard.

The control was addictive as well. Maybe in a gunfight, she'd stand a chance. She was always quick and a good aim came naturally to her since she was a child, but the battle between strength would always land in his favor. Right now though, she had him on the ground, grunting and growling with each churn of her hips and drag of her nails down his chest. She had him under control and at this rate, she'd come soon.

Knowing her orgasm was so close, so soon made her almost high with excitement. She hadn't ever felt so good with someone else before...and it'd been years since she'd done anything like this.

The wet sounds between them, his throaty groans and her own perverse moans almost muted another crack of thunder. Only a slight shiver ran through her at the sound, and her hips never paused. Another dopey grin broke out on her face as his ragged hands ran up her rear to scratch a line of welts down her back.  
It was primal, violent and she loved it.

"Jesus Christ!" she swore as the dim approach of her orgasm started, "... I'm gonna come… fuck..." she sounded shocked, but she wasn't or was she? She couldn't even think properly…

And then, just as her back was arching and the rush was coming, those rough hands that had been leaving her moaning and wiggling like a damn whore, gripped her so tight she couldn't move. For a second she struggled against his hold before a desperate whine tore from her throat, "What? - let… go… fucking hell."

She hadn't even looked at his face since...she'd uncovered his chest. He looked as faded as her, as drugged and desperate, but there was something else in that look and she jerked once, twice in his grip before grabbing fist fulls of his jacket to shake him.

Suddenly she was on her side – flipped in an instant and the next she felt her pallet under her back and his cock sink in deeper. Her fingers still curled around his lapels, she felt him hook his thumbs behind her knees and press her thighs to her chest.

A stab of fear made her swallow as all that amazing control left her…

"Now who's under whose control, smoothskin?" her own words repeated back to her wasn't as mocking as she feared.

He smirked and suddenly the fear melted as did the kindle of anger, replaced by a single word, "You."

The rumble in his chest and the sudden, violent thrust of his hips said he liked her answer, and she couldn't help but love his reaction. She was so close, it didn't matter that he'd taken the control from her. All she wanted was to come around him.

Charon was more ruthless than she had been, though it was he that had the ability to stab her over and over again; buck his hips back and forth as hard as he liked with her knees squashed against her breasts. It felt like he was too deep most times, but it didn't matter – the sharp smacking of his hips against her rear was too good and the pleasure bordering on pain too dangerous.

She was getting fucked now. So royally fucked she couldn't say half the filthy things she wanted to, just moan, swear and scream knowing that no one could hear her but him.

Her orgasm, when it finally struck her, was savage. It felt like her body had opened up and he was fucking the life out of her. Too tight, too hot and yet she greedily wanted more. A sweat broke out over her body and suddenly everything was slick and overpowering and she was reaching for him between her pinned thighs and the wide berth of his arms. She caught his shoulders, but even her hands were damp. 

Then, as if her touch said something her dry throat couldn't, he dropped her knees and they fell open immediately to embrace his hips.

Against her tender nub of flesh, she could feel the dry but slicked strip of worn skin above his cock – it was once more too much as she jerked to push him away; whining.

"No," she heard him bark, but it all felt too intense and still she bucked in his grasp and struggled against his arms as they secured her against him, pushing their hips even closer. 

"No..." again he growled, this time right against her ear. The hot breath made her shiver as the pleasure grew less painful as he drew shallow but quick thrusts against her.

"You like getting fucked by a ghoul… don't you?" he sneered, teeth running along the slope of her ear. She moaned as another climax started to show itself with the interchange of his thrusts to rough rolls of his hips, "Say it!"

A rash of humiliation stained her cheeks and without thinking, she turned her head from him and sucked in her lower lip. Only a deep breath signaled her second orgasm and a strangled hiss. It was less powerful than the first but better as it trailed off softly without that painful intensity.

"Say it..." he asked this time, followed by a groan. He grabbed a thigh and spread her open wider, starting a relentless rhythm, breathing hotly down her neck. Her body was being jolted with each buck and thrust and with a hiss she latched on around his neck, pushing her lips to a expanse of muscle. It felt waxy, but the disgust never crept up. With a moan, she licked at it and tasted salt and a tang of copper, just like his mouth.

"I like..." she grunted and swallowed, "... getting fucked by… you."

Her eyes rolled back in her head as he assaulted her, going hard enough to bring tears to her eyes – and then he stiffened, rumbled in a mixture of pain and bliss with strong, savoring thrusts. A wet heat flooded inside her, bringing a haze of pleasure as he came. God, it was so fucking good, she realized, with no thought of the consequences.

"Fuckk..." he cursed shakily, quivering above her as his hips churned in a lazy motion.

Slowly the sound of the rain reached her ears as the ringing subsided.

\------------------------------------

Bliss. Charon relished the word in his mind as his body did the meaning. It was heat, and fire and a burn in his gut that flooded through the rest of him; down his thighs to his toes in his boots and gripping the muscles in his arms until it hit his fingers which curled deep into the meat of her thighs.

It felt amazing. 

"Fuck," he muttered again, dipping his head as his neck went lax into her sweaty shoulder. She smelt of perspiration, with a tang of radiation and the now unmistakable sweetness of a woman. The pandora’s box had opened and he inhaled deeply with his heart still racing, knowing he'd rather face her humoring wrath than remove himself from her anytime soon. He wanted to savor this a little longer. Whatever urge had come over her – over them – may never happen again…

"Can't," he heard her gasp, "... can't say that wasn't worth my bullshit… right?" A soft, breathless giggle, more girlish than he'd expect to hear from her, rumbled underneath him.

A grin broke over his face before he could contain it. With a nip under her ear that got him a quiet moan, he growled, "Barely.”

She chuckled again; a hand skimming between them to touch where they were joined. The back of her knuckles brushed his abdomen and his hips bucked involuntarily against her, feeling another jolt of pleasure curl in his gut.

"Guess you'll want to get off me then, in that case."

Charon grumbled, pressing deeper inside her, making sure she sucked in a breath before he pulled himself from her. Half hard, his cock rested against her thigh as he propped himself above her. Her face looked flushed and the dip of flesh under her eyes looked wet, but a contented smile curled the corner of her lips. He couldn't recall being so enraptured by anything or anyone before.

"What?" she asked with a slight edge of worry in her tone. They shared a silent moment of searching eye contact before he felt the side of his own mouth lift in a smirk.

"Did I make you cry, smoothskin?"

Her lips puckered and her eyes narrowed, huffing at him with what he could only assume was mock indignation. She didn't answer him, but he had to snort with amusement when she pushed him off to fall on his side, rolling away from him. 

"You're intolerable," she muttered, more to herself than him he figured. "... but fucking worth the pain..." she hushed to herself. He smirked.

On his side he watched her, not bothering to put himself back in his pants nor lower his shirt. In fact, he sighed with ease, as he shucked off his jacket, enjoying the air as it hit his bare arms and cooled through to his half bare back. 

The girl wouldn't care to see more of him after she had his fluids inside her...the very idea made his cock twitch and sure enough when he gazed at her – rifling through her pack on her belly – he could see the stickiness between her thighs. It made him growl low – a primal feeling making his chest puff out with each great breath.

Nothing he did ever made him feel less a man, despite his appearance, but this – the raw energy in his nerves and the red marks visible on her skin – made him feel more a red-blooded man than he had in over a century. For now, the consequences mattered little.

Her small cry of victory pulled his attention from the curve of her rear to her wide grin.

"Want one?" she asked, twirling a bent cigarette between her thumb and forefinger. "I don't usually smoke, but… fuck, I've got a reason now."

"They'll kill you, kid," he murmured, but tilted his chin in eager acceptance She tossed a half-crumpled pack at him, which he caught with the slightest fumble. His mind still felt stuffed with cotton. He lit his smoke, inhaling a deep lungful as she wore the tip of hers between lips, watching him. Out the corner of his eye, he gave her an appraising look. With her eyes slanted, hair tousled and face peeking over a shoulder on her belly, she looked like a pinup girl from before the war.

They fell into a comfortable silence. She never lit up, but it never struck him as odd, neither did her longing look as he smoked on his back. The rush of nicotine accentuating the warmth and glow of his post-orgasm endorphins and the welcomed ache of his muscles. Only when he stubbed out the end of his cigarette, crushing it between two fingers, did he break the silence.

She was still staring at him when he turned to her.

"You wanna tell me your name," he began, "or do you like the anonymity?" If she did he could relate to that sentiment, but he'd fucked her… and she'd fucked him… and he wanted a name before the rain stopped for good.

A sad smile crept over her lips; her brows dipping in the middle. Suddenly she looked young, too young.

"Guess no ones asked in so long I forgot it was common before the war… introductions and all..."

He waited while she composed herself, getting to her knees and crawling closer. Her nearness made a stitch grow in his chest, and a heat kindle anew – it made him count each breath just as he would behind the sights of a rifle.

"Dolores," she said awkwardly, smiling with a twitch, "but my friends had called me Dolly."

Charon would have laughed at her sweet name and her not-so-sweet attitude, but a solemn presence came over her. If he had a friend at any point in his life… he guessed it would be her. His tongue swayed in his mouth before he spoke, "Thanks for the smoke then… Doll."

Saying her name made him feel light – not like old times since he'd never known the lighter side of life before the war, but it was a comfort all the same. Her smile might have been the culprit, but he didn't care enough to question how he felt.

"You can thank me later."

He rose a brow ridge at her, watching her lean in and kiss him. The urgency wasn't there as it had been before, just a nearly chaste touch of soft lips against his half-open mouth. When she pulled back it was only to bury her face into his neck, covering his body with her own until she was lying above him; hands curled loosely beside his face and legs tangled around one of his. Was she… cuddling him? His mind went blank for the first time in his long life.

The bewildering sensations, emotions and aimless internal questions followed him into a sleep filled with her scent and heat...and the soft puffs of her breath against his neck as he too succumbed to slumber.

Charon's last thought was how odd it was that she managed to fit so well against him...for such a tiny… crazy… doll…

\------------------------------------

"Oi!"

A whistle and a hand waved in the air brought a hulking ghoul over to a slight, dust-covered woman. 

"Get that tight ass of yours over here." Despite the demand, the ghoul smirked, hoisting a shotgun half her size over a wide shoulder with an air of defiance regardless of his current place at her side.

His smirk dropped as the girl pointed.

There, quivering beside a freshly killed squirrel, looking thin and wet with filth was a small dog. A puppy. The ghoul seemed at odds with a stern face as the girl bounded from one heel to the next in obvious joy.

"What is it?" asked the big ghoul with a dry rasp, looking unimpressed at his companions find.

"It's a cake, sprinkles and all," she returned with a snide glance, "What the fuck does it look like?"

"It looks like a waste of resources and a shitty meal."

Like an old couple, they bickered while the pathetic pup watched on with wide, wet eyes, trying to keep its attention on the two while simultaneous chewing on a squirrel leg – the bones crunching under its tiny teeth. If an animal could seem both confused and terrified – this one did.

"Would have thought someone as sweet as you would jump at the thought of a pet to hold at night," the girl said; sarcasm dripping from her lips. Her arms were crossed tight and as if she wasn't bumping heads with a mass of muscle and tattered skin, she shoved him with a shoulder.

"I already have something to hold at night..." he growled like it was an insult, but the girl just huffed, holding back a smile.

"It's already done. I've looked at it and the fabled beast has won."

The ghoul simply frowned, watching as she picked up the little thing – the dead squirrel still in its mouth, dangling as the pup tried to eat it while it hung in the girl's arms.

"But," the girl chirped, "since I'm a great gal, you can name him. Definitely a male."

Behind her the ghoul arched a brow, or what was left of one at her words. Whatever was going through his mind he remained quiet, simply looking at the sight before him, mouth twitching oddly.

"Homeward bound?" she asked, trying to pull the remains of the dog’s meal from its mouth as it growled with no amount of effective terror.

"Home. You're bathing that thing..." the ghoul muttered. She swung to face him, mouth open but a word never came as the ghoul’s leather-clad hand covered it swiftly, his other hand taking the back of her head in a firm grip. "Bathe it, outside. Then you'll join me for one… no more fucking words."

It was clear the girl didn't appreciate the command, but not a single sound left her mouth when his hands withdrew.

"Now let's go."

And with the girl smiling outside of the ghoul’s view; victory clear on her features, the ghoul wore a similar look. Both of them relished in what they thought was their own victory as the sun started to fall behind them.


	7. The Motorcycle

She slams the motorcycle over, it’s kickstand just a long rusted stick that crumbles as the hunk of junk falls into the hard-packed sand. Stranded with little provisions and water she has taken to pouting much like a child around the heaps of car engines, blowers, exhaust pipes, scrap metal, and two sun-scorched cars. He’s never seen her do this before; complain so adamantly that her cheeks look sunburnt. It’s not something he’s had time to familiarize himself with. To avoid. To palm with caution. He is out of his element, as she so often puts him.

She lights a cigarette and he stands with his gun pointing to the dirt she’s kicking with her boots. Blooms of it glowing yellow in the sun at their feet. Unable and unwilling to speak though as he is, she demands answers at increasing volumes, waving the burning ebb of her smoke around in erratic circles and arches.

Often than not he doesn’t say much. She knows this. Even if he did there would be little, he knows, that could calm her down. He looks away when she turns up to meet his stare after falling broodingly silent, eyes dark despite the low burning ball in the sky. Now seems like the time to scout the area, if anything it’s to avoid feeling useless while she fumes.

Not many things can make him tuck his tail and run. But she can and does.

As it was when he’d first scanned the perimeter though, there is nothing to shoot or chase, nothing to use as an excuse so he may take himself further from her. It should shame him that he’s uncomfortable around a pissy teenager, but not many people have spent as much time around this girl as he has. Her rare moments of anger and or sadness make up for all the times the emotions seem unable to affect her. It is terrifying to behold her negative emotions as they are conglomerates of other issues she ignores more often than not.

It is dark when he finally decides to approach her. 

The evening was spent perched in a natural nest above four joined rocks emerging from within the earth, eyeing the horizon, wishing for an unfortunate enemy to dot within the heat lines. Nothing came and with the last of the purple in the sky, he eases to her side once more, seeing parts of her moving behind the upturned carcass of the motorcycle. She’s set up an electric lantern, powered by a humming generator that she’s drug outside some time ago he notices. 

Even past the tubes and scuffed parts of the machine he sees her naked arms and naked stomach, shiny against the light as she grumbles, making a motion with her arm that tells his brain she’s trying to either screw or unscrew some bolt she has no way of knowing its purpose. An open copy of Dean’s Electronics sits beside her, a sad sight when he knows she’s already read it four times before. The issue will not help her with the task at hand.

For once he desires to talk, but the chances of her anger flaring again makes him think better of it. Besides, it is a better use of his time to stand watch while she fails at her task. If the motorcycles or the cars could have been fixed people would have done so by now and the world would be different. Despite knowing this a part of him entertains how easy it has been for her to change so much already, and a decayed motorcycle coming to life wouldn’t touch the other tasks she’s accomplished so far. 

Against his will an image of her straddling the machine, nipples poking against a clean grey shirt and vibrating metal touching pink panties. She points a finger at him and coos ‘bang bang’. 

His gut writhes.

“Charon, that you?” she says low when his boots crunch over a pile of rust she’s scraped off. Who else would it be, he thinks, and why would she be calm if the potential for him being someone else was even an option?

She doesn’t look up when he steps closer, peering down, her face obscured under her uncut hair. He avoids looking down the deep slope of her shirt where naked breasts are plainly visible. Instead, he watches the tendons in her hands pull up and sink back beneath flesh painted blue by the light, trying to no avail on unscrewing a nut. She recognizes the sound of his approach he realizes, and as he angles his head to catch the sight of her face, she’s smirking. Teasing him.

He feels relief and annoyance.

Her teasing is mostly lost on him, but she does it regardless, sometimes with too much subtlety that makes him act foolishly before she explains herself. It is no secret she enjoys it, so he allows it, mostly ignoring it. But she tilts her head up, the smirk growing into a grin that makes her cheeks look full and healthy and he is won over. For the moment he has enjoyed her little tease and turns away before she can see the side of his lip twitch.

She sings ‘White Christmas’ as he goes about his tasks, trying and failing to ignore her.

That night he makes a small fire between the two cars as she works and curses. He watches her. Her back is to him and hunched forth so the bare strip of flesh above her rear breaks his concentration. It catches his eyes more than it should while he spears spongy molerat meat on sharpened pieces of metal rods. The sour scent of near-rotten meat floods his senses and it is enough to dull whatever is stirring in his gut. 

His mind rolls in the dark, touched raw and seedy by the flames in the fire. The meat cooks as he twists it around in the blaze. It is a mindless task, and even though his eyes dart around the pitch-black shrouding them, even while his ears strain to listen for distant gunshots, rocks kicked and doped sniffles, he thinks. 

He ignores her itching at a bare hip out the side of his vision and shifts the soles of his boots into the sand, feeling a sensation deep in his muscles. The feeling starts off dull but grows as his thoughts drift past the normal threshold. Where his veins touch the bare air or the inside of his leather, the sensation is greater - like bubbles of heat in his blood. It happens when he thinks about her, about her when she bathes, palms a breast when she’s sweaty or bends down to pick up some piece of junk from the desolate ground. 

It is a train of thought he’s only indulged in once before, giving himself the first phantom erection later that same day that he’d had in years. In some portion of his brain, he worries of the consequences later in the night, while they lay side by side, but the thought vanishes when she gives a loud grumble, tossing herself back on the ground. It is her childish admission of defeat. He has seen it many times.

“All these parts. I need a paper and pencil to mark down what goes where…. should have done that from the start.” That means she has no idea what she’s doing he notes with a mild wave of amusement. 

Her head rolls back in the white dirt, mashing her hair into the sand to look at him from the opposite spectrum he’s staring at her in. Her nipple has escaped the too large and too loose confines of the worker’s tank - an action he assumes came from her falling backward without thinking. His head swims a moment, then his mind tells him that she knows she is exposed. The cool night air is blowing in her hair and in turn, she must feel it on the puckered flesh drawing his eye.

Her eyes close as she sighs. Tired he realizes, finding an excuse to look away from her now that he can force her to eat something finally. A reason to break the one-sided tension.

“You should eat,” he mentions as if it was just an afterthought. 

The key to getting her to do as she needs to is to pretend he does not care either way. As he expects she nods in the dirt and rolls over, twisting the thin garment around her ribs, fully exposing one soft-looking breast. It is insulting he thinks, that she cares so little about exposing herself to him as if he is not a man to her. It’s something she’s never said to him or anyone else, but it is evident in the way she acts when it is just the two of them. She would not dare show a bare shoulder in a place like Megaton let alone a pale, bouncing breast.

On hands and knees, she crawls to him, proving his point when she saddles up to him and rights her shirt without an ounce of shame. It bothers him, but he tells himself it doesn’t as they eat together in silence.

“Did you ever pick up anything about them in your years?” she asks after washing down the sour taste of the meat with a flat, warm cola. When he just stares back at her she points.

His eyes turn to the motorcycle - the parts she’d scrubbed of rust glisten blue and white. He does, but he is not obliged to inform her of that, so he shakes his head in the negative. She sighs something that sounds like ‘oh, well’ before leaning against his shoulder, finishing her drink with the tilt of her head on his bicep.

She is warm, like the fire on his front and nothing like the cold at his back and empty side. One finger twitches on his knee, threatening to touch her while she’s distracted, but instead he smudges dirt from the palm of his glove, waiting for her to either speak or move. She does neither for so long he finally cranes his neck, eyes rolling down until they ache. He finds her eyes closed and the side of a mouth parted in sleep. He doesn’t dare move for what he knows is hours later, keeping his watch where he is. There has never been a moment in his life where he has not heard an enemy approaching first from the darkness and her light breathing doesn’t once overpower his vigilance.

Only when the third-hour approaches does he shift ever so slowly, catching her head against his chest as it rolls back in her sleep. The last time she slept had been 56 hours ago. She is dead weight in his arms as he lifts her against him. Only a single sound, more a wheezing breath than anything, escapes her mouth as she settles in his grip. A part of him doesn’t like how deep she can sleep - it is a hindrance to her survival and has made him question how far she has gotten without a second pair of eyes on her back, but her sleep comes so rarely now. She deserves to sleep when she can.

Her body molds to the bedroll with a sigh that wracks her whole body and he does not have the proper willpower to turn away when she kicks a leg and her young breasts bounce under the thin cotton. She settles with fingers curling around nothing and breathes out her content.

His employer deserves more than a good sleep, at least one without him leering.

Staring back from her to the motorcycle he feels that itch in his blood again, and before too long he’s sitting in front of the junk pile, staring at the caked-in cylinders, the matted brakes, a completely rotted through the exhaust pipe. Most of it is held together with rust and nothing more, but when he grabs the frame and gives it a careful shake, the sizzle of long contained nuclear slug echoes through the tank.

It has fuel, but that isn’t the issue he knows.

Briefly, he sits there and stares at it, realizing more than once it’s not worth the time, but time is something he has plenty of and it could only be spent one of two ways - sitting idly in the darkness, waiting for a fight, or potentially giving her something no one else could give, and that appeals to him more than the taste of his own adrenaline-poisoned blood in the wake of a conflict. As soon as the thought enters his mind he dials up the light on the lantern, turning around, checking to make sure it does not disturb her. She does not move and he palms each part, scratches grime away where it is necessary and rips out guts where there is no hope of salvaging them. 

He searches junk piles with as much caution and silence as he does everything else, turning eyes to make sure she is still blissfully unconscious. When he makes a racket he falls still, only continuing when he can hear her steady breathing. Continuing this way for hours he amasses a pile of spare parts, some almost useless and others in surprisingly good condition.

When he’s dismantled the motorcycle of all grime and damaged goods, he’s gone through a pack of cigarettes, his breathing wheezing heavily by the time he’s replacing the first nut around a new gasket. It goes slow, and some parts he sets aside - needs to set them in with heat. Something he won’t do, knowing it will wake her.

The last thing he does is flip on the switch for the nuclear battery - the lights don’t work, but it hums and grows warm in time. Satisfied, he shuts it off and spits into a rag, wiping it down until it shines in the places it still can. As he stares his stomach grows tight; curling and full of mounting heat. It is a feeling he recognizes, knows, but will not give it any true acknowledgment. Instead, he drags himself up and assumes his position on the cinder blocks, kicking the charred remains of bone and wood that has been long dead before he threw them to the flames.

He stays on watch for the rest of the night, until the pink and purple blend of dawn rapes the wasteland, exposing the decay that the darkness concealed. If she had awoken he would have ignored any protests at taking over the watch anyways, and though he has slept less than her this week between Megaton and Rivet City, she is not built like he is. This is what he was made for - to watch, to kill, to protect and never tire. And now, he thinks, it’s to give her things he’s not obligated to give.

Quiet noises catch his attention and he watches her before she, herself, even registers she is waking. Sleep is heavy under her eyes, but they open and stare over at him, smiling even though her lips don’t.

Her brow arches after she does, arms above her head and fingers in the sand, a question in her eyes. He gives her a short shake of his head - no, there were no issues in the night, and she smiles with relief. He doubts she could have slept through gunfire or grunts of physical violence on his part, despite how exhausted she was.

“We’d be at the boat in a day if I could fix that thing,” she’s talking to him, picking up the same train of thought as before her sleep. She offers him a regretful smile before rolling on her side, tucking both hands under her head, looking too young, “Then again we’d be there now if I hadn’t insisted we see The Dog, that was a grandiose mistake on my fucking part.”

He wasn’t going to think about the disk jockey today, or ever if he had his way.

Her gaze burned on the side of his face, waiting for him to voice his opinion, knowing he has one because she knows him too well after all they’ve done. He won’t say what she expects him to. This time he’ll keep his mouth shut. 

After minutes the burn leaves him and he dares a look to find she’s made her way back to the machine, palming the dull edges that, to her, must look new and polished. He sits, holding his breath as she sees with her hands.

Quick as a viper she turns to look at him, her cheeks ruddy and eyes shining - it is a terrible reaction he tells himself. A simple smile and maybe a laugh was his hope, now her lip is trembling and her eyes are starting to leak. Something is wrong with her and it is his fault.

“Charon…” it seems she means to say more but she chokes on it and looks down. Without warning he’s leaning back as she’s falling against him, arms tight and uncomfortable around his neck, her cheek on the skinless portion of his neck. Tears wet the muscles and he feels his blood pounding, knows she can feel the thin tree of exposed veins pulsing against her face and is embarrassed because of it.

Sparks race inside the marrow in his fingertips. They itch to touch but he doesn’t risk it, just remains still as she gives him a tight squeeze, pushing against him so close that her body heat tumbles through layers of leather and warms his hide.

“You fucking liar,” she laughs and sobs, “ ‘I don’t know anything’ he says.” 

He didn’t say the words, but it is then he realizes, to her, it is like he speaks. Why her sudden, casual parrot of his rough tone makes him finally realize this he doesn’t question.

He has never needed to speak for her to understand. She knows from the way his eyes gleam, his mouth frowns or how his body reacts. The subtle cues he gives but doesn’t realize, she understands them. 

Though it goes against his programming he puts his large hands on her back, part of his fingers touching soft, bare skin. He has no real defense against the desire. It is hard to stop when you don’t know how, which could be why he grabs the back of her head, pulls her from his neck and puts his mouth - lips, tongue, and teeth - under her jaw, kisses down the front of her throat to suck the flesh that attaches collar and neck. Salt explodes on his tongue and he growls, needs more.

Suddenly she is like a rock under his touch, and he stops mid-bite. Fear, panic, pain at forcing such unwanted attention on an employer fills his every nerve. It is not even that which sets him on edge. She does not instill the same feeling others have - she never has. Even his phantom lust means nothing compared to his true desire to be by her side, fight her battles alongside her. 

He has made a mistake touching her and it hurts.

“So…” she starts, her words so small he barely hears her, “guess I’m pretty awesome if I get courted with motorcycles, that is… assuming it has anything to do with this… current situation.”

He doesn’t understand, but she looks down between them, to his groin and shifts her hips against an erection he’s been too faded to realize. When he meets her eyes, ashamed of himself, she’s wagging her eyebrows. It is endearing on her, even if it makes her look ridiculous at the same moment. In the end, he’s more relieved she is not disgusted by his state to comment on her silly behavior. He is even less able to think of a one-word retort when she leans forward, plucks at his lips with her own and he feels, unmistakably, the teasing grin on her mouth.

It isn’t until they both are sitting around the motorcycle, him holding parts in place and her blasting the metal with short laser bursts, fusing the materials into one that he feels a sense of ease. She jokes with him shyly about why it had taken him so long to cave in under her womanly charms, about why he never mentioned how her lack of dress affected him or voice his thoughts in any way. He gives her a look over the sparks and heat and she nods, understanding.

When noon approaches she’s loose and limber, kisses his jaw on her tiptoes and seems happy. 

She grins so wide when she flips the switch and it howls to life, vibrating her body in a way that makes him stare for far too long. He grabs her waist even though there is no need, and helps her straddle the seat properly. A low sound escapes her throat as she churns the throttle, making it sputter to life despite all odds. The sight almost makes him smile, but he forces the corners of his mouth down out of habit. When she stares back at him and leans forward, cooing ‘vroom vroom’, he can’t help it. 

He smiles and she laughs loud and easy.

They make it to Rivet City in three hours, beating the night.

**Author's Note:**

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